Weave poles

Your dog snakes through a line of upright poles — the most technical obstacle in agility, built over weeks from a wide channel down to a straight line.

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾 · ~30 days · 6 min/session

Learn first: Wait, Come

Step-by-step

1. Set up the channel of poles

   Push six light poles into two rows — three on each side, about sixty centimetres apart along the line, with the two rows offset a full stride sideways. That makes a channel your dog simply runs straight through, with no bending at all. Work on grass or another non-slip surface: weaving is made of tight turns and the paws need grip.

   💡 Weaving twists the spine and loads the shoulders, wrists and — in a growing dog — the growth plates, which close somewhere between twelve and eighteen months depending on the breed. Until then the channel stays wide open and your dog just runs straight through it. Ask your vet when your particular dog is ready for real bending, and with a long back, hip dysplasia or extra weight ask before you push in the first pole.

2. Run the open channel

   Stand at one end, release your dog and throw a treat forward, a metre past the last pole, so they run straight through instead of stopping inside. You travel parallel, alongside the row, and never step in between the poles. Ten or so runs a session, until the entry becomes fast and confident.

3. Narrow the channel a little at a time

   Bring the two rows in by five centimetres a session, so your dog starts to bend slightly without losing speed. The rule is simple: five clean runs in a row earn another five centimetres; two misses in a row send you back to the previous width. Getting the poles into a single straight line takes weeks, not days.

   💡 If your dog starts skipping poles or popping out sideways, the channel has narrowed faster than their confidence. Open it back up one step and leave it there for five or six sessions before you carry on.

4. Always the same entry

   The first pole always passes on your dog’s left shoulder — that is the entry rule across the whole sport of agility and there is no point learning it any other way. Approach the channel from different angles and from either side of your dog, but the entry stays the same. If they get it wrong, stop calmly, back up three strides and present it again, without a word of reproach.

5. Add the cue “Weave”

   Once your dog runs the nearly straight line confidently, say “Weave” just as they set off towards the first pole. Stop leading with a treat in your hand — the reward flies forward out of your pocket, and only after the last pole. Mark with “Yes!” at the exit, never in the middle, so they don’t learn to stop inside and look back at you.

6. Speed, distance and both sides

   Send your dog into the poles from two or three strides away while you stay put, and gradually run first on the left of the row, then on the right. Change the place and the surface — garden, park, a different field — because weaving often falls apart the moment the background changes. Three or four runs a session are plenty: this is hard physical work.

   💡 Never weave on cold muscles or in the heat — five minutes of walking and light trotting before the first run. If your dog comes out of the poles limping, or suddenly refuses a channel they know, stop training and have your vet look at them.

Common mistakes

• Closing the channel all at once so it looks like a real weave — the dog starts skipping two poles at a time and learns a wrong rhythm that takes months to undo.
• Weaving straight poles with a growing dog — tight bends on open growth plates are a genuine risk to the shoulders and the back.
• Steering the dog between the poles by the collar or the lead — the weave becomes something that happens to them instead of something they do, and the speed never arrives.
• A reward handed over from your hand halfway down the row — the dog learns to stop between the poles and watch you instead of finishing the weave.

Problems & solutions

My dog skips two poles at a time instead of going around them.

Speed has outrun technique. Open the channel back up by two steps, cut the row down to four poles and reward only clean runs, throwing the treat past the last pole. Start narrowing again only after five clean reps in a row.

My dog enters correctly but pops out somewhere in the middle.

Usually the cause is you: you stop, turn your shoulders towards the dog, or reward from inside the line. Run parallel all the way, shoulders pointing along the direction of travel, and pay only at the exit. If that doesn’t fix it, drop back to four poles in a wider channel for a few sessions.

My dog refuses to go in since the day they clipped a pole.

Swap in light, flexible poles that give way on contact and go back to a wide-open channel of three poles that your dog simply runs through for a treat. Don’t call them in and don’t coax — reward every voluntary step that way. If they limp or guard one side, get the vet to check them first.

Reward ideas

The reward always flies forward, past the last pole — a small treat or a thrown toy, so the movement stays fast and straight. For a dog that runs for the game, a short tug after a clean run beats any treat.