A flyball practice can look like total chaos to the uninitiated. The energy level is so high that it rattles some folks… others thrive in it. For me I just love seeing happy dogs using their minds and physicality … being allowed to be rowdy, loud and strong. I love to see all that animal energy focused on a task. Our modern, mostly suburban dogs don’t get to hunt or work as a pack, or even round up some sheep, but all that desire is still there in their genes. I find flyball a great outlet for them. Their teammates become their pack and they are hunting tennis balls.
So what is the best way to organize a practice so all dogs get a good workout, the humans learn stuff towards maximizing their performance and everyone makes some progress. There are probably as many opinions on this as there are flyball teams, but here is what I do:
- Identify what your goals are for that practice. Specific things that a particular dog needs to work on, or a training technique you want to use. It may be a particular dog is drawn off their lane when in a particular lane, or maybe you want to tighten a pass between two dogs.
- Gather your team before each practice to discuss team business and practice goals. I find folks do best when you let them know what is coming next.
- Practice the most mentally challenging for the canine first, before they are tired. Many folks feel this is box work. I work my trained dogs first, attempting to finesse their body placement and keep them from getting lazy about their turn. While the trained dogs rest I work my green dogs at learning their box turn.
- Full runs and passing for tournament ready dogs is next. Here we address desensitizing a dog that is intimidated by another, tightening passes till both are running with confidence, then fine tuning and taking notes on release points.
- While the tournament ready dogs rest I bring out my green dogs for hurdle running. Here is where you spend time training handlers to get the most speed out of their dogs. Also laying the foundation for the handlers on traffic flow in the ring. You also work for a clean release for the dog… where they have all their energy poised and are listening for that “ready, set, GO”
- We finish up with assorted training techniques depending on the need. It might be the “passing game” for a green dog or “eight hurdle power runs” for trained dogs or flat recalls for the puppies.
Connie
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I would love to hear how others organize practice.
We have team dogs, green dogs and dogs from other teams coming to our practices. It is hard to organize practice sometimes. People say they are coming and don’t, people who say they aren’t do, etc…
We have a practice facility for 3 hours on Sundays and not every Sunday which does hinder progress on dogs. At times we don’t get to practice for a month at a time.
I have actually written up a practice schedule and sometimes it works when nothing changes people and dog wise. Other times, I just give up and make up a schedule on the fly depending on who is there.
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