Treibball

[arf2184]

Has anyone tried Treibball? What are your thoughts? If you've tried it, what were you're beginning steps/sessions in training like?

 

My agility instructor has started teaching a couple beginning Treibball classes. She is new to it too and is kind of learning as she goes. She taught one 6-week class in Jan/Feb. I've signed both Meg and Bear up for the March/April session, which starts on Wednesday. At $30 a dog, I figured we could go have some fun.

 

I'm not expecting much from old Bear. We tried a few sessions with a big ball at home, but he didn't really get it. If nothing else, he can be the 'class clown'. The main thing I want for him is to get him out of the house and moving around. He's been laying around far too much this winter and this seemed like a good low-impact indoor activity for him.

 

Meg and I did some free-shaping with the clicker. She caught on right away that I wanted her to move the giant red ball and she had a blast pushing it around the living room. She hasn't learned how to control the direction in which the ball travels yet, but I suspect we'll work on that in class.

[Rave]

I think it's a joke.

[zenotri]

It seems to be getting quite popular over here.

 

I don't have any interest in it, but it drives me insane that people keep calling it a form of herding. It is NOTHING like herding!

[Root Beer]

Has anyone tried Treibball? What are your thoughts? If you've tried it, what were you're beginning steps/sessions in training like?

 

I haven't, although if I had any extra time for training whatsoever, it is something I would love to try with Dean.

 

I did look through some Youtube videos at one point and I found some really good ones on introducing the skills. You might want to try that. I don't remember any of the links or anything, but if you search, you should find some.

[Smalahundur]

I think it's a joke.

The name is a joke, the activity is just as serious or if you will silly as any dogsport, agility included.

[cookieboy]

I think it's a joke.

 

 

 

The name simply means drive ball in German, where the game originated. Just like any other dog activity, Treibball is a game. It is definitely not herding, and is a game any breed of dog can enjoy. Herding dogs tend to excel at the game, because of all the same reasons they excel at so many activities. I rescued my now 9+ BC from a suburban shelter, and I have many reasons to believe he was a "failed" goose control dog. Failed, I believe because of running away, which I can't blame him for because of the shock collar he arrived with. There aren't too many sheep here (we did have an instinct test and traveled for a few lessons), but I gave my boy a great life, and a job in agility. Because of back problems and other issues, he can no longer enjoy the games he loves most- agility and frisbee. Rather than allowing an otherwise healthy, mentally sharp and still young at 9 BC lounge around pining for what is now off limits, I discovered Treibball as a wonderful alternative for him. It's mentally stimulating, very exciting for him to play, but easy on his body. It will never be a passion for me in the way agility is, but I am trying to arouse interest in the recreational dog community here. My daughter's little Patterdale terrier mix easily learned to push the ball, and a bulldog was successfully learning the game at one of the seminars I attended. Anything that is fun, promotes positively reinforced training, and disabled participants can play has it's place. A partially disabled woman recently contacted me expressing interest in learning the game with her nearly blind, but energetic dog.

[juliepoudrier]

I think it's a great way for people to develop a partnership with their dog by doing something fun. If it also taps into some instinct, great. I do think it's a bit silly for the handler to have a crook, but whatever, it's not *harming* anything.

 

I agree with those who say it's no sillier than flyball or any other dog sport that emphasizes training and partnership (to a greater or lesser extent) with the human half of the team. Seriously, how is it more of a joke than flyball, if we're going to single out dog sports that seem silly or a waste of time to outsiders? (I wonder when we'll see special mixes being bred for treibbal? )

 

It's not herding, but for people who want to do something similar without harrassing or harming actual living animals (or whose dogs exhibit some instinct but don't seem terribly interested in working livestock), I see nothing wrong with it and think if could be a positive thing.

 

J.

[Frogs & Dogs]

I agree with those who say it's no sillier than flyball or any other dog sport that emphasizes training and partnership (to a greater or lesser extent) with the human half of the team.

 

I'll go along with that. I don't know much about Treibball, but it seems to me there's a lot of variation in the extent of that partnership between the different sports. I tend to gravitate towards the sports that offer greater potential for building that bond. For example, agility requires the dog to read the handler and cue in on signals which are sometimes subtle. I also enjoy disc (freestyle in particular) because again, success is directly dependent on the handler's performance. On the other end of the spectrum is a sport I'm just now getting into: nosework. In this sport, the handler learns to read the dog rather than the other way around. I quit flyball after just a couple of lessons because I felt like nothing more than a cheerleader. I'd be interested to hear how people think Treibball stacks up in terms of handler involvement.

[urge to herd]

We took a Treiball workshop and really liked it. My favorite trainer is very into Nosework, and doesn't have time to fit a Treiball class into her teaching schedule. I keep lobbying for it, it might happen.

 

When a naive individual calls it 'herding' I point out politely why it's nothing like herding, it's more like a game of directed soccer. That's taken very well for the most part.

 

I like Nosework because I'm reallly learning to read Gibbs much better, just as F&D says. It's also great because the dog learns to use this great ability it's born with!

 

Ruth and Gibbs, who alerts when he hears the word 'seek'.

[arf2184]

We had our first Treibball class on Wednesday. Both dogs loved it! (My sister and I enjoyed it too.) So far, we've started teaching 'push' (having the dog push our hand), 'come bye' (go around to the left) and 'away' (go around to the right). We're also working on a drop/lie down (from moving to a down) as well as working on our sit-stays (all the dogs in class did great on that one, but it doesn't hurt to practice).

 

Bear, at 11 1/2 years old, not having ever learned much beyond 'the basics' and a few tricks, is at a bit of a disadvantage. Most of the dogs in class are agility dogs that are used to reading body language and figuring out what the silly humans want. Bear is probably the slowest to pick up on things, but you can tell he's having fun even when he doesn't have a clue what you want (he just smiles and starts working through everything he knows hoping its one of those). He doesn't understand 'push' but he picked up on 'come-bye' and 'away' fairly quickly. He has trouble with the drop/lie-down because of his hips so we won't be practicing that much with him.

 

Being a beginning class in a large barn, everyone does things at the same time so there's no waiting for our turn like in agility. Meg really likes that. I wonder about her past herding training. She seemed to understand what I wanted with come-bye and away without me really showing her. She could just be better at reading me than I thought or perhaps she remembers. She lived on a farm for five months with someone who adopted her with the intention of putting her to work herding but it didn't work out...don't know the details why not. I'm guessing she was too soft and didn't respond well to the deep voiced male (took her a year to get used to my dad).

 

As far as Treibball being 'herding without the sheep'...I think come-bye, away, and lie-down are about the only thing the two have in common. And circling out around stationary balls is probably quite a bit easier than circling out around living moving sheep. There is a herding Border Collie in our class and her person is using different commands from come-bye and away so as not to confuse the dog.

[beachdogz]

We had our first Treibball class on Wednesday. Both dogs loved it!

 

Bear, at 11 1/2 years old, not having ever learned much beyond 'the basics' and a few tricks, is at a bit of a disadvantage.

 

I think it is so wonderful that Bear gets to participate at -- wow -- 11 1/2 years! Reading that just warmed my heart. I think our dogs don't look at their retirement the way we humans look at our retirement.....I do think they miss participating. So good for you!....and good for Bear!

 

Keep us posted...I am very interested to hear about the classes and I'm sure others are, too.

[arf2184]

We had class #2 today. We mostly reviewed what we did last week and started to ask a little bit more.

 

This time we used our big balls to work on Come By and Away, first asking the dogs to go around our one ball (each person brings their own). Then later we combined all the balls in a big group and had the dogs go out around that. Its amazing what a challenge it was with a group of balls...the dogs mostly wanted to either sniff them or plow through the middle. They all got it in the end though.

 

We also (working with just one ball) had the dog circle around the ball and sit so they are facing the handler with the ball in between us. At this point, we're still working in a very close space and most of us leaning over the balls to get the dogs to stop and sit facing us.

 

We're working on adding distance to the lie down/drop. Meg has a very nice quick drop (almost a plop..lol) but she likes to come most of the way to me before she does it. We've tried working on a distance-down before without much success. Hopefully this time, with the different context (and a now-more-confident-dog), we'll get it. Bear is very slow on his downs so I don't think it will be very helpful to him if he ever gets to the point where he can 'play' at Treibball, but he too is working on it.

 

We're also still working on 'push'. Bear just plain doesn't get the whole 'push the hand' thing. (He'd rather shake.) Since the goal is to simply put a command to pushing something with his nose, we'll work on him pushing a target on a stick and just forget about the hand. Meg already knew hand targeting so all we had to do was add a little more force and duration to it. She caught on quickly.

 

We also worked a bit on moving the actual ball. One dog in class (the smallest dog) was afraid of his ball so he was rewarded for simply approaching it. Everyone else started by placing a treat under the ball and having the dog move the ball to get the treat. The ball is between handler and dog so that the dog pushes the ball towards the handler. Bear was great at this. Meg was too...though I had to make her sit and stay a few feet away so I'd have time to put the treat under the ball before she could snatch it up...lol. I think the next step is to phase out the treat and reward to dog for simply pushing the ball toward us in a controlled manner. Our trainer really stressed this. You don't want to let the dogs lose control of the ball or go crazy just pushing it all over the place.

 

That was it for today. I'm very glad that I decided to sign Bear up for this class. He's having a lot of fun. He did keep trying to come visit with me during class (my sister is working him while I work with Meg). I try to turn away and ignore him so he'll realize he should stay with Karen, but Meg doesn't help. She's all body-wags and kisses every time he comes up to us...lol. He's a VERY food motivated dog and he's loving all the treats he's getting. He also gets to walk and sniff around the field outside the barn before and after class which is another big highlight for him.

[arf2184]

Class 3 was last Wednesday. Old Bear got himself all worked up and anxious in the car. I don't know why, but he bounced, circled, paced, whined, and panted all the way there (its only about a 7 minute drive). He was so hyped up by the time we got there he couldn't focus on anything. I walked him around the barn a bit and eventually he calmed down.

 

Once class started he was doing good so I switched back to Meg and my sister took him. In class, it was more of the same ('come by', 'away', 'drop', sitting next to a target) only this time we started putting things together a bit. We sent the dog out around their one ball, sit, and then push the ball to us. (Still working just a foot or two away from handler.) We're also trying to get the drop/lie downs with more distance.

 

Bear is doing great with 'drop'...better than I thought he would with his old joints. While he is still slower than any other dog in class, he has gotten faster at getting into a down position.

 

He is just starting to understand that he's supposed to push the ball...BUT he pushes with the top of his head (not his nose or shoulders as is preferable)...silly dog. So needless to say while he pushes he can't really see where he's going because his nose and eyes are pointed at the ground. I think he'll figure out eventually that there's a better way to move that ball, but for now he gives everyone a good laugh.

 

Meg is ahead of most dogs in the class when it comes to pushing the ball...pushing the ball with control towards me is not her strong point though. She wants to push it to the side or in circles. (Straight is so boring!)

 

Bear was worn out after class...I think it was a combination of being anxious on the drive there and just working his brain. He slept all the rest of the day. The next day we went for a walk and while he did not appear to be sore or achy, he was a much calmer dog than normal. I think class is doing him some good mentally.

 

No class next week...our trainer is taking her Papillon's to Seattle for PCA Nationals.

[gcv-border]

handler.) He is just starting to understand that he's supposed to push the ball...BUT he pushes with the top of his head (not his nose or shoulders as is preferable)...silly dog. So needless to say while he pushes he can't really see where he's going because his nose and eyes are pointed at the ground. I think he'll figure out eventually that there's a better way to move that ball, but for now he gives everyone a good laugh.

 

I am glad Bear is doing well and IMHO think that he is pretty smart. I understand about needing to see where one is going, BUT, I know I would not want to push a nasty old ball with my nose. :D The "top of the head" push seems a logical option to me.

 

Jovi

[arf2184]

The past two weeks we've done more of the same. With our come by and away, we're asking for a bit more distance both from the handler and the back side of the balls. We're also (still) working on adding distance with the drop/lie down. And of course we're still working towards a controlled push of the ball towards the handler.

 

Today we had a great class, though Bear seems to be losing interest in most of it.

 

Bear wants to be done with the whole 'push the ball thing'. He seemed to be doing well for a short while, then he just stopped. I'm not sure if its that he doesn't get it or if its that he just doesn't want to. It could also be that he's been a bit sore lately. The weather has been nice so we've been spending more time outside walking/running in the fields and he's not used to that after our winter indoors.

 

He likes doing 'drop' (except when he's sore) and 'go touch' the target and turn to sit by the target facing the handler. Those are things he knew in different contexts prior to this class and he's gets so proud of himself when he does them right. He does 'come by' and 'away' great at home...in class, with adding distance, he's a bit hesitant. He doesn't want to get that far away from his person.

 

We have one more week of class. Because he's kind of getting frustrated with the ball ('I'll do anything else but that'), at this point I don't think Bear will continue on to the next class (which will spend more time focusing on ball work). With the nicer weather coming, getting him out of the house and moving around is no longer a problem. He's had some fun with Treibball and it gave us something to do during the wet, cold, snowy, muddy season which is what I wanted. So for now we'll let Bear go back to being 'retired' (though I may still work him a bit at home just to keep his brain active).

 

Meg on the other hand is really loving every part of Treibball. She's ahead of most of the other dogs in class. She LOVES to push the ball and is improving at pushing in a controlled manner. I can tell her to 'drop' from across the barn and she'll immediately plop from a stand into a 'sphinx position' (though not while shes moving forward...we'll work on that later). She gets a bit too enthusiastic with her 'go touch' and sometimes sends the target flying (oops). Her 'come by' and 'away' are great, except occasionally when she turns her ears off and starts pushing the ball instead. We'll see how the scheduling works out, but I think I'd like to continue Treibball with her.