Weave poles are a set of twelve vertical poles, 2 feet apart, that the dog has to weave through. For the dog they most unnatural obstacle in canine agility. Jumping and climbing over things and going through openings has something to do with daily life, but in the normal course of events, there’s nothing a dog does that has the same wiggle factor as the weave poles. As the dog weaves his spine is bent in two or even three directions at once. It’s quite amazing to see a lithe border collie whip through the poles like this:

Chico was slow to get weave poles, lots of dogs are, but now he approaches them with a wagging tail and is starting to speed up quite a bit. And he almost always does all the poles. Here’s a little video I shot at class the other night using Dennis’s Flip placed on the railing at the edge of Julie’s arena.