Entries from July 2007 ↓

In many places, one being where I live, flyball is a four letter word. What does that mean you say? It means that the majority of dog people, obedience and agility, think that flyball is a bad thing. I have been battling this for the last 7 years and it hasn’t gotten any better. I think it mostly stems from a few people but when those few people are the only ones in the area that offer agility training their voices are pretty loud.

Before we even knew about flyball, my wife and I were members of an obedience club in Montgomery, AL. At the time it was the only place in the city that even offered obedience training. It is still rather well known throughout the city as the place for dog obedience and agility training. Even to this day, they are very old school, but I think now they are using clicker in their agility classes. When I started in puppy classes with my first Border collie, Casey, I used a clicker to train him at home and pretty much ignored the training material that I received in class. I told the instructor what I was doing and she pretty much thought that I was crazy (this was 1999). I was really only taking the class for one purpose, socialization. Casey and I went through Puppy, Beginner, and Novice 1 obedience classes with the club.

About same time, my wife, Fay, and her Labrador retriever, Paige, were in Novice 2 obedience and beginner agility training. In this club, your dog had to advance through Novice 1 to be enrolled in agility. Paige was never very fond of agility and really did it because Fay wanted her to. Being a young Lab and full of energy, she really needed something else to siphon some of her energy. One morning while watching Animal Planet, Fay saw flyball and as they say, the rest is history. Since there were no flyball teams in Montgomery, we had to travel to Birmingham which was about 100 miles from our home. After our dogs were playing for a while, we wanted our own team in Montgomery so we wouldn’t need to travel so far. There were 3 of us, me, Fay and Julia Markham. Julia was also a member of the obedience club.

The 3 of us went to the membership of the club and told them that we would like to put together a flyball team and asked for their help. Well, you would have thought that the world was coming to an end. There was a lot of resistance to it to say the least. After all, the club was an AKC obedience and agility club. There would be no help from the club and flyball became a bad word for most of the members. However, we were able to get the word out about our endeavor and a few people from the club were interested and wanted to try it out. Word got back to the club that some agility people were looking at flyball and all of sudden everyone quit.

A few other attempts were made but those also failed, and up until last month we were still running with people from Birmingham. It has been very frustrating getting so close and then failing. However, we are not giving up and will make one more valiant attempt. We know that there are now others, besides the club, teaching obedience in places like Pet Supplies Plus, PETCO, and PetSmart. We will again be putting flyers out in stores and Veterinary clinics and we will be meeting at Pet Supplies Plus for practice and recruiting sessions. However, the club still has a firm hold on all agility in the area, but maybe we will succeed this time. If anyone has suggestions I would love to hear them.

What is it with AKC clubs and their fear for anything associated with other organizations? Has anyone experienced this same problem?

Larry

So let’s get started. In this lesson we will start to lay the foundation that was talked about in the previous post (Laying a good Foundation). Please note that you should not move on to other lessons until you are confident your dog is performing the exercises in this lesson and giving you that 110%. There is no time limit for this lesson and it will take as long as it takes. It really depends on you and how you interact with your dog. You should know when your dog is ready to move to the next lesson.

A good motivator is made not found

A tug or Frisbee is the preferred motivator, but whatever you pick you should stay with. Play with your dog daily with it and make it a fun game for him. Much of this is teaching the dog that it is fun to play with you and the motivator. This will help the dog’s focus and keep him on task. If the dog is focused on you and the motivator he will be less likely to get in trouble.

When starting with a new motivator, a good game to play is the keep away game. You can start this game being excited about the motivator. Hold the motivator high enough so the dog can’t get it or run around with it because the dog will almost always want what they can’t have. Show your dog how much fun the motivator is. If you are starting with a puppy you may have to start having him follow your hand or food and slowly work toward transitioning to the motivator. Tugging is a natural behavior for most dogs so this should not be a problem.

Play Time

Sometimes the dog may not want to play and this is okay. If this is the case put your motivator up and don’t play. Your dog must want to play rather than being aggravated to play. Only play with the dog when the dog is giving 110%. At the first sign of fatigue or disinterest the play should end.

Keep your motivator out of sight when you are not playing with your dog. As soon as your dog sees the motivator they should react and know that this is play time. This is a good indicator that the dog is ready to move on to the next lesson.

Keep your play sessions short. I cannot stress this enough. Longer sessions are not better. Keeping your play sessions short insures that the energy level of the dog will be high. A dog that just woke from a nap may not be ready to play. If you normally feed at a certain time the best time to play may be right before feeding time.

Try to always end your play sessions with the dog wanting more.

The Way You Feel

If you are feeling depressed or stressed don’t start a play session. If you get stressed or upset during the play session, try to end on a happy note and quit the play session. It is just as important for you to be at 110% as it is for the dog.

Training Manual Information

This is a series of articles that I will post about Flyball training. I would ask that you please try to keep your comments to the specific topic of the each article, for there will be many others. You can see a high level outline of the topic to be covered in future post by viewing the Training Manual. Keeping the comments specific to each article will help future readers.

Please keep in mind that there are numerous methods in use but these are the ones that I use and they are some that work for me. If you have others that you would like to share, please post your comments.

The most important thing in flyball training is laying a good foundation from which to build upon. Just as with building a house, this process should not be rushed because everything that comes after will use this foundation.

Many people just entering the sport want to see results too fast and when they don’t see them they get discouraged and quit. A 6 or 8 week flyball course is not enough time to have most dogs trained and running in the ring as most new people expect. Six to 8 weeks may not even be enough time to achieve a good solid foundation and this is where many trainers fail.

Training Pitfalls
New people entering the sport by taking a flyball training class should be prepared for slow results. Like agility or obedience, mastering flyball may take several classes before a dog is ready to race. There is really no point in wasting your time and theirs if they want instant results. The new people seeing this sport for the first time only see dogs running, jumping, and retrieving a tennis balls. They will tell you that their dog loves tennis balls. Any good trainer will tell their new people that it takes time and they should not rush these newcomers just so they can get new people and dogs in the ring. Trainers do their trainees and their dogs a disservice by taking this approach.

Best Approach

Take as long as it takes to train the dog to be the best they can be. Getting the dog in the ring as soon as possible is not listed as one of the training goals in the previous chapters. Use the lessons in this manual and do not bypass any of them especially the first two. They are by far the most important and ones that are frequently missed by many flyball trainers.

Motivation

Developing a good motivator for your dog is one of the most important things you can do for your dog. The traits most often displayed by the truly exceptional flyball dogs are motivation and drive. Their owners and handlers, through positive training and motivation techniques, have been able to tap into them and bring out the best and that desire to please and to give 110%. You have the power to do the same thing with your dog.

Obedience Training

Much of the things you were taught in obedience training you don’t use when training a flyball dog. Flyball training is not obedience training and some things taught in obedience training have no place in flyball training. Discard all negative training techniques and only use positive motivation. Granted, some breeds required a more forceful approach at different times, but as a general rule the positive approach will produce the best results in the long run.

Retraining

Avoid retraining at all cost and train right the first time. I know that mistakes can and will be made but don’t let bad training or unwanted behavior continue. At the first sign of unwanted behavior, backup and redouble your efforts to remove it before moving on.

Retraining is much harder than training right the first time. Dogs are creatures of habit and training out bad or unwanted behavior is much harder than training in good ones from the start. A very good example is letting a dog hit a flyball box before a proper box turn is taught. It is very difficult to retrain a good box turn after the dog has found his own way and most owners will realize this when it’s too late

Training Manual Information

This is a series of articles that I will post about Flyball training. I would ask that you please try to keep your comments to the specific topic of the each article, for there will be many others. You can see a high level outline of the topic to be covered in future post by viewing the Training Manual. Keeping the comments specific to each article will help future readers.

Please keep in mind that there are numerous methods in use but these are the ones that I use and they are some that work for me. If you have others that you would like to share, please post your comments.