The Story of Way To Weave
Hi, my name is Ace Russell, the founder of Way To Weave. I’m an agilityholic.
Our weave pole story
Long ago, I stumbled into agility with an honest, patient dog who helped me learn the sport. A decade later, I found myself with a particularly talented, high-speed puppy. I had enough other equipment on hand to start training her, but I lacked a good way to train the weaves. None of the training sets I saw seemed completely safe for dogs. And I couldn’t find any single piece of equipment that offered all the possibilities, including going smoothly from training to a regulation configuration. Hesitant about buying multiple sets, I started to think about how to build a set that would include everything I wanted. The basic design of what we initially called our ‘Channel’ sets actually came to me in a dream!
That’s now called a ‘Regulation Training’ set, since it’s capable of all popular uses: 2x2, Channel and Regulation. My design consultants have helped me refine that basic idea over many years and versions.
You may wonder why we also sell Competition sets, since our Regulation Training sets can do everything. Good sportsmanship demands that equipment used by all competitors on any given day has unquestionable integrity, consistency and reliability. Competitors and judges alike would face issues about weave poles that have (when unlocked) moving parts. So when our agility friends, who loved our first Channel sets, asked us about making Competition sets too, we listened. We knew, from our experience with Channels, that we could make a super robust and high-quality Competition set. It’s great that clubs can use our Regulation Training set as a backup for trials, since it does meet specs, but we highly recommend our ‘Competition Event’ sets for official trials.
Which set is right for you?
If you provide equipment for official trials, the choice is simple: Competition. You can also do 2x2 training with a Competition set.
If you need multiple options for training, and you also want regulation weaves, go for a Training set. Its main advantage is movable pole supports for making channels, a path that’s wide at first, allowing your dog to go straight through. We often start our novice dogs with 2x2s, then include Channel training to help them feel the whole 12-pole obstacle as one. Each pole is independent and can be locked down at any distance from the base. When wide channels become narrow, and narrow becomes inline, your dog is weaving!
REGULATION TRAINING WEAVESTM – recommended for training centers, coaches, seminars and individuals
US Patents 7,819,085; 8,181,605; 8,347,822; 8,875,661
COMPETITION EVENT WEAVESTM – recommend for official trials, agility clubs and individuals