Flyball Practice!

[BC_MoM]

I'm a flyball nut too! I don't mind.

Sounds like Sheena loves what she does there. I'd love to see a vid of her doing it!

[cloverfdx]

Have fun at the tourny, enjoy the kaos of the day LOL.

[Spiritwind]

I too have been reading this thread since it started... I wish I could watch the videos but my computer is a mess and will not let me LOL I also do a little bit of flyball..... with my smooth collie girl, actually we have a class tonight at 6:30..... I had to miss the last 2 wks of flyball because I was sick with the flu and couldn't get out of bed, so I'm looking forward to getting back.

My girl is still learning it and still has a ways to go, but LOVES the running part, she is pretty fast, and is now doing the single stride between each jump when they are regulation distance apart from eachother.... is doing much better with the box... is now getting all 4 feet on the box, and albe to do the "swimmers turn" as they call it (atleast where I doing training at)... which was kind of hard for her to learn because she is soo long bodied, it took her a couple classes to finally get her to get all 4 feet on the box and learn to kick back off the box....

The hardest part for her is to not spit out the ball on the way back to me... she loves the running and the excitement of flyball.. when other dogs are running she is barking and jumping and watching them closely because she wants to go run and play too... and she has an excellent recall to come back to me as fast as she possibly can... but she is one I had to train to get the ball because she had little interest in the ball, her main focus was food..... the trainer of the class said her first Jack Russell was the same way... she had to train him to pick up the ball etc... because he wasn't ball motivated either.... well Paris will get the ball now, they had me use a clicker to train her to get the ball, never used a clicker before then, and I have to say I LOVE those things now! Its amazing (to me) how fast she picked up what I wanted her to do (it took a couple steps) with the clicker.. no way she would have gotten it like that without the clicker...... but now she keeps spitting the ball out on her way back.... so thats what we were working on the last class I was at..

This is the 2nd class I've done.. in the first class we had a Boston Terrier who caught on quickly and was AMAZING.... they didn't bring him to the 2nd class, so I don't know if they are still working him or not, but he was great.... and in both classes i've taken we have this other person with a cute little shih tzu/maltese mix... believe that is what he is... smallest dog I've ever seen do flyball... he does really good!! but in the last class I was at, they said they needed to change the tension on the trigger in the box, because he couldnt trigger the box when he jumped on it to get the ball LOL

[BC_MoM]

I have the opposite problem! Jersey won't spit the ball out for a tug or another ball! LOL

It sounds like need to teach Paris to "HOLD IT". Teach her to hold the ball in her mouth with the clicker. Start off with just a couple seconds, and work your way up slowly to 15 seconds. Then when she is good with that, you can add it to her runback. When she goes off the box (or picks up the ball off the ground if you're doing dead ball) and starts running back say "PARIS, HOLD IT!"

Good luck!

[Jessika]

Boo Jess, tried finding flyball training in my area via the internet and came up with NOTHING. But I knooow they exist... but I can't find anything. I'm so frustrated lol

[Spiritwind]

I have the opposite problem! Jersey won't spit the ball out for a tug or another ball! LOL

It sounds like need to teach Paris to "HOLD IT". Teach her to hold the ball in her mouth with the clicker. Start off with just a couple seconds, and work your way up slowly to 15 seconds. Then when she is good with that, you can add it to her runback. When she goes off the box (or picks up the ball off the ground if you're doing dead ball) and starts running back say "PARIS, HOLD IT!"

Good luck!

Thanks! Yeah... thats what we have sort of been working on... well I haven't done much with her the last couple weeks since I've had the flu... but thats what I was trying to do before I missed the last 2 weeks.... but I just got back from Flyball class... I think the 2 wk break did her good.. she did surprisingly well.... and was very excited to be back.... and she VERY much wanted to go get that ball... which is HUGE for her, as when I first started flyball training with her in March (or was it april??? dunno) she wouldn't even think about going to get that ball!!! LOL

Didn't get her to bring the ball all the way back over all 4 jumps yet... so we took away all the jumps except the last one before the box.... as today she was spitting the ball soon as she would turn off the box, to start running to me.... so we got her to bring the ball over one jump and rewarded.... did that a few times... and then put a 2nd jump up... and got her to bring the ball back over 2 jumps... stopped at that for this class... but this week I'll work with her more on the "hold it" command.... for next weeks class...

[BC_MoM]

That's awesome!!! Great work! Sounds like she'll get the hang of it pretty soon!

Jess, I'll check around and see what I can find!

[Spiritwind]

Jessika,

Just in case you hadn't seen this... here is a list of Flyball teams in Missouri.. maybe one is fairly close to you:

http://www.flyball.org/getstarted/missouri.html

Also here is another link http://flyballdogs.com/locator.html#missouri