Frisbee question

[Maven]

Hello, All!

 

I'm new here, having happily stumbled onto your board yesterday. You truly have some amazing, beautiful dogs here.

 

 

Aengus is our (almost) 5 month old BC. He LOVES his frisbee and will 'fetch' it all day long. But I can't figure out how to get the concept of 'catching it' out of the air across to him. He will follow it, sometimes with his nose touching it, all the way to the ground but it has to touch the grass before he will grab it.

 

I have tried holding it out and spinning gently while saying 'Catch, Aengus' and when I do that, he will leap up and grab it from my hand and praise him profusely when he does, and he does it readily as if he knows exactly what I want. But if I release it and tell him to catch it, it has to hit the ground first.

 

Any suggestions would be welcome.

 

Thanks!

Maven

[mobcmom]

Hello, All!

 

I'm new here, having happily stumbled onto your board yesterday. You truly have some amazing, beautiful dogs here.

Aengus is our (almost) 5 month old BC. He LOVES his frisbee and will 'fetch' it all day long. But I can't figure out how to get the concept of 'catching it' out of the air across to him. He will follow it, sometimes with his nose touching it, all the way to the ground but it has to touch the grass before he will grab it.

 

I have tried holding it out and spinning gently while saying 'Catch, Aengus' and when I do that, he will leap up and grab it from my hand and praise him profusely when he does, and he does it readily as if he knows exactly what I want. But if I release it and tell him to catch it, it has to hit the ground first.

 

Any suggestions would be welcome.

 

Thanks!

Maven

[mobcmom]

I guess I hit the wrong buttons on the computer.

 

I am relativly new to frisbee also, but generally when you start something new build up to it.

 

Try holding the frisbee and have him "take it", with lots of praise for sucess.

Then work up to tossing it in the air close to you havd have him "take it", again lots of praise for sucess.

Progress to longer straight throws with working on getting the frisbee to "hover" in the air.

 

Getting a good throw and distance are the real challenges. If you can work towards straight hovering throws that the dog can track it and I think this will help.

 

Make sure to use a good disc dog frisbee and consider joining a disc dog club in your area (or a yahoo groups - disc dog forum.) There is a lot of information on-line.

 

Note: The disc dog group to which I belong remind people not to jump their dog untill the dog is about 1 1/2 yaers old. Their joint are still growing.

 

If it helps we just got a 4 month old bc puppy and I have started trying frisbee with her. So you never know where that will lead.

 

mobcmom

[Shetlander]

I've never taught a dog to catch a Frisbee but Quinn figured it out on his own (and no thanks to all my wild throws) when he was about 8 or 9 months old. A friend's BC also started catching Frisbees at that age. Maybe it's a developmental thing and puppies don't have enough eye-snout coordination until they are a little older.

[shanni and kingsley]

kingsley was 4 plus when i got him and started teaching him frisbee.

 

he totally didn't have any catching in the air concept at all.

 

however, it is easy to teach.

 

first..

 

you get him to like the frisbee... playing tug and such... until a point where he will chase after it.

 

then.. roll the frisbee on the edge for him to chase the frisbee...

 

when he is good at chasing and catching it while it is rolling and of cos bringing it back..

 

you can start tossing the frisbee.. vertically up.. not the normal frisbee throws.. but sideways still like when it is rolling on the ground. and just above the dog.. and having him do little jumps.

 

and you can toss higher and further.. and then.. soon.. he'd be able to lift off and catch the frisbee.

 

hope it helps.

[Brandon M]

I guess I hit the wrong buttons on the computer.

 

I am relativly new to frisbee also, but generally when you start something new build up to it.

 

Try holding the frisbee and have him "take it", with lots of praise for sucess.

Then work up to tossing it in the air close to you havd have him "take it", again lots of praise for sucess.

Progress to longer straight throws with working on getting the frisbee to "hover" in the air.

 

Getting a good throw and distance are the real challenges. If you can work towards straight hovering throws that the dog can track it and I think this will help.

 

Make sure to use a good disc dog frisbee and consider joining a disc dog club in your area (or a yahoo groups - disc dog forum.) There is a lot of information on-line.

 

Note: The disc dog group to which I belong remind people not to jump their dog untill the dog is about 1 1/2 yaers old. Their joint are still growing.

 

If it helps we just got a 4 month old bc puppy and I have started trying frisbee with her. So you never know where that will lead.

 

mobcmom

[PUFHere]

It took Caly time to learn to catch the frisbee -- about 2 months. She would watch it hit the ground and then run and pick it up. She got the hang of it after a while but I it started catching on when I would take her inside -- sit on the couch and toss it to her. then take her outside and throw it. She figured out to catch it outside.

 

Now if I could only get her to catch cheese in the air when I toss it to her. hmmm.

[Maven]

Lots of really good suggestions here, thanks!

 

I guess the biggest help will be age, eh?

 

He sure is smart as a whip, so I imagine he will catch on eventually. I will try the suggestions!

[gypsy84]

Gypsy's going through the same thing too!

 

She loves her frisbee, but just doesn't know how to catch it yet. If I throw it straight to her, she'll leap up into the air and sort of try to use her paws to catch it, or else stomp it down to the ground where she knows she can get a hold of it

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

He's too little. If you force him to try it at this age, he'll learn bad habits like trapping and tacoing. Have him chase rollers at this point to build chase drive and reinforce the retrieve.

 

Introduce the concept of "TAKE" by having him take it directly from your hand. Release instantly when he has it under control, but if he misses snatch it away and hide it and say OOPS.

 

When he's about seven or eight mnths, he'll have the coordination to grab it in midair. Learn to spin the disc in front of you. You'll need a real disc for this, preferably a regulation disc. Spin the disc and say TAKE. Praise like crazy when he grabs it.

 

Then you teach DROP - spin a disc, then say DROP when he lands at your feet and spin another disc. Do this about 40 times. Then start backing up in between disc spins so that he has to come forward a bit to drop the disc. Eventually you'll spin a disc, back up really fast so you've got a lot of distance between you, and there's your catch and retrieve. At that point you are ready for some very low tosses out away from you.

 

You can't, can't, can't do full frisbee games until the dog is finished growing, well past a year old. Keep sessions short, don't do multiple repetitive exercises in one day, and keep everything on the ground. If you are patient, you'll have a dog that is still catching discs into his teens! However, you can do lots of these exercises that fine tune all the skills he'll need, once it's safe to catch them way over his head!

[airbear]

I'm not sure what your 'goals' are (if having goals with a frisbees is not too ludicrous a concept) but if you want to compete in disc dog, be it freestlye or distance/accuracy, I would use a regulation (plastic) disc for all my training. With a young pup, I would work on rollers (rolling the disc on its edge on the ground) and making it the most interesting thing for the pup. Some very close 'rapid fire' work would be ok too (where you kneel at a distance of a foot or so from the dog and fire disc after disc at him - gently, to start!). Rapid fire really worked for me and my aussie, teaching him how to catch and drop rapidly. Plus, you can do it whilst sitting on the couch!

 

When he's done growing (and I think 2 years old is a pretty safe bet, but you can get him x-rayed to confirm) only then would I start any sort of formal training re: catching it in the air, etc. When we competed (Bear and I) I would cringe watching 11 month old pups taking huge air on vaults, flips, etc. I wonder how those dogs are doing some 5 years later.

[Katelynn & Gang]

Just do rollers or real low throws. If he swipes it out of the air, great but you don't really want him getting any air himself right now (he could get hurt and damage himself for life). He has got many years in front of him to be playing disc dog and mid air catches will come faster then you know.

 

Just food for thought though. A full brother to my bitch ended his disc dog days a few years ago when playing in the back yard of his home. He went up and the frisbee got caught by the wind, he twisted and caught it like a pro but came down wrong. He shattered his hind leg and has never walk the same again, let alone play another day of frisbee. He was five years old and was an experienced frisbee dog.

 

Just think of all the things that could go wrong with a pup in the air? And worse, what could go wrong in the landing?

 

Katelynn

[Maven]

Thank you ALL so much for the well thought-out, informative replies. Really, this is great.

 

No, I don't want to compete him in any way. And I sure don't want him to hurt himself at all!! We do keep it low to the ground, and do a lot of rolls with it. I really just wondered if there was some way I could get it across to him that when he lands it on his nose he could go ahead and mouth it but that is no big deal.

 

This is just because he LOVES to chase the frisbee soooooooo much. It is his favorite toy. He really isn't interested in balls at all. When you take him outside the first thing he will do after relieving himself is go gather up his frisbees. He has taught himself how to stack them all up, biggest to smallest, then he will come to you with the stack so you will throw them for him. Funny pup.

 

I will follow your advice and just be content with him chasing it, 'catching it' on the ground and bringing it back. That'll do for now. This weekend he did catch a couple just a split second before they touched the ground and we praised him, but I won't encourage that any more for a while. We plan on this little darlin' being around a long, long time so we want him started on the right foot.

 

Hope all the pup-mamas had a happy Mother's Day.

Maven!

[HighDesertSpice]

Hailey could have been signed up for the Mariners the way she could field a tennis ball, but really struggled with a frisbie for a while. I think first off, get a really soft frisbie (the dollar store had some she seems to like: canvas on a rope circle). Some dogs have really soft mouths. Then we started slowly: i tossed it from a short distance so she could learn to guage its movement. Then gradually I increased the distance. She can catch one now, but we don't focus on frisbie games.

 

I agree with the "be careful" messages. As fun as it is to watch, it can be hard on your pup.

[Jim2000]

Hailey could have been signed up for the Mariners the way she could field a tennis ball, but really struggled with a frisbie for a while. I think first off, get a really soft frisbie (the dollar store had some she seems to like: canvas on a rope circle). Some dogs have really soft mouths. Then we started slowly: i tossed it from a short distance so she could learn to guage its movement. Then gradually I increased the distance. She can catch one now, but we don't focus on frisbie games.

 

I agree with the "be careful" messages. As fun as it is to watch, it can be hard on your pup.

Kaylie will catch a frisbee in the house all day long and catch it in the air too, but if i throw a frisbee outside she flinches like a threw a brick at her and wont even make an attempt. It's werid inside she gets excited to play frisbee , outside she wants nothing to do with them. All she wants outside is for me to kick her ratty old soccer ball or to shoot tennis balls from the tennis ball slingshot.

[Rescue Nut]

I agree with the "be careful's"! Can be very damaging at this or any age.

 

But if you are just doing frisbee for playtime - low to ground - no jumping, I too would start with a soft bite frisbee. Petsmart or Care A Lot pet catalog carries a soft bite that has a nylon/canvas center and has an enclosed rubber bike-tire-like ring. Very soft, and won't hurt their mouth/teeth when catching. It floats too if they like to swim.

 

My previous BC - Buffy (rip) figured out the catching thing by first catching soft inside play toys and treats, while sitting. Then as she got older, the fun of running and catching her "frizee" was her favorite thing to do.

[stwilliams]

IF you guys go to flyingk9s.com tracy cluster and adrain have great tips on teaching your dog to catch a disc

it is a disc doggin club hear in souhtern ohio

[Genie]

I agree with the warnings about being careful about jumping.

 

My Zeb is new to frisbee and wouldn't catch it in the air at first. That was fine with me - I worked on getting the pickup and retrieve. After watching other dogs play frisbee, he started trying to catch it out of the air. I hadn't planned it - he just started doing it. Dogs can learn a lot from just watching. It took a while for him to learn how to judge where the frisbee would be in the air and for me to learn how to throw it so that he could catch it on the run instead of jumping for it. Don't rush things - your pup will learn in time.

Make sure that you're using a soft fabric frisbee or a competition style plastic disc. The plastic discs they sell at pet stores, toy stores and even sports supply places are just too hard.

 

Check out the discs on these sites:

Discovering the World Discs

Hyperflite Jawz Discs

[Bo Peep]

I had 2 naturals got the daughter first- rescued the father- both were in the finals. From day 8 weeks that gal could catch a Frisbee. Her dad's other owners said "He used to play Frisbee when he was a pup" well, he was 3 when I got him and man that dog could jump. Off my back, into my arms, wouldn't miss a disc at any distance. I was too nervous in the ring to show him- I let my oldest son show the oldest dog - they didn't win, but they sure came close. It created a bond between them- he later showed him in herding trials. Didn't do too bad, either. That darn rescue dog would work for anyone (after a year of trust) Rescue is great- once you get the dog to trust you- there are no boundaries.