Inspired by Luisa and Chief the Beagle’s great performance at the Eglington Agility show at the weekend we decided to get some contact equipment for Beanie and Biggles – a dog walk, A-frame and a seesaw. The seesaw arrived this morning.

Beanie and Biggles were very excited and kindly helped us unpack all the pieces.

It all went together very quickly and we soon had it assembled and located at the bottom of the garden. I went indoors to get some training treats and my clicker and had a think about how to go about teaching Beanie and Biggles. I figured the first step would be to build up their confidence – it’s bound to be scary for a little Beaglet when that seesaw starts to tip….

Then I looked down the garden and saw Beanie and Biggles taking it in turns to sprint over the seesaw at top speed – they didn’t even seem to notice the thing tipping!

That left me at a bit of a loss as to what to do. The dogs I’d seen at competitions all seemed to stop/slow half way along the seesaw so that it tipped slowly. How to get my two dare devils to do that? We played with the seesaw for a couple of minutes then decided to call it a day until I’d found out more about it.

I’m beginning to think that the pups were doing it right without me!

Beanie and Biggles were keen to do more so we did a little bit of weaving. The method I used to teach Beanie to weave doesn’t work with Biggles but I think we’ve now found an approach that will suit him. I break the weave poles into three sets of two poles and stagger them. This allows him to go through a full set of weaves quite easily – he only has to learn to walk between two poles and keep repeating. Gradually we’ll move them closer and closer together until he’s doing it properly.

Beanie is starting to get very good. She’s getting quite fast and reliably enters the weaves correctly from pretty much any angle no matter where I am standing.