It seems as though most people want to do ‘something’ with their dog and flyball sounds like fun! Once they realize the dogs don’t learn this overnight and as a team sport some level of commitment is required, many of them don’t return. But we are always willing to have new people come and check it out and try it with their dog because every once in a while you do find one of those ‘dog crazy, have no social life (outside of dog sports that is!), kids are grown and/or gone, willing to travel anywhere’ kind of people that meshes well with the team and becomes the next flyball addict.

I think what you are offering is a great idea and know of a facility up in NH that does the same and it’s a great idea for people who want to try the sport.

I also meant to add that I’ve recently been approached to start my own team in the area (along with a few others from the team I recently left) and am looking forward to seeing how the addition of a “team” practice will effect my weekly open classes.

How many of you hold two separate practices for seasoned and in-training dogs?

All the time, I was on my second team, however, I was holding “free for the public” Flyball classes every week at a small training facility. I began these classes mainly because I had a shy dog in training and I needed somewhere to practice this dog outside my house and with other dogs around besides the one he lived with. It worked out great – in fact, still works.

Every week, I stop by for an hour with my practice equipment and dogs, teach a few dogs Flyball, get my dogs their weekly skill practices, and leave feeling much happier than I arrived. (My job is stressful!) I’ve been doing this so long now, I have a few regulars. I even have a green dog prospect who’s been to a few tournaments.

I seriously believe this way of “weekly, open to the public classes” works better than the “sign up for an 8 week class” idea. Sure, I get some dogs who stop by once or twice, then disappear, but I also get a lot of people who come as they are able, twice a month or so, learn about Flyball, see others dogs at different levels doing things, and find they enjoy the sport.

The people aren’t forced into a set 8 weeks schedule that may or may work depending on other plans, but feel free to miss a class here or there and catch up later. No one is slighted that their dog isn’t progressing as quickly since everybody is working on different skill levels.

Additonally, I get the extra benefits of exposing my own dogs to many other people and dogs. I take volunteers to run my dogs in practice heats and use their new dogs as distractions. Its great! The new dogs learn to focus on their owners, the seasoned dogs learn to ignore everything but the lane.

* This final paragraph rings true, since I, myself, have done the majority of my dog’s training myself in my living room.

I know that I’m not the best people person so I guess I need to leave me and my attitude at home and let my wife handle the people aspect of it. Thanks again.

You’ve talked a lot about the stress of trying to grow your team and that may color your recruitment efforts. Great I’m talking to another person who probably won’t do flyball, why bother. Not the most appealing attitude. I think people often get involved in dog sports b/c they are looking for friends, friends who like dogs are even better. Especially for people new to an area, dogs are a great way to break the ice & make friends. Not sure how to target that kind of demographic. Many of our team members fell into flyball by accident, someone saw their dog & suggested it to them as somethign fun to do, or they saw it somewhere and thought my dog can do it. I know it was 2 years from when I first heard the word flyball before I heard it again, this time with info on how to check it out. So your efforts may not yield immediate results, but keeping flyball alive in your area might!
Our best tool is offering short beginner class for people to try out flyball with no commitments. I think the beauty of that is that people can spend 5 classes seeing if they like it, if their dog likes it, and not feel like they are a failure if it doesn’t work out. We of course give lots of praise to dog & handler!
Enough babbling/sunshine blowing from me.

So far, it hasn’t been visited very much but, that could be because it is a new message board and not many people know about it yet.

You can access it here:

http://www.freewebs.com/chrisvanwert/nafaflyball.htm