Agility, Flyball or Frisbee?

[BCFo]

Hello to all of you people! I am new to the board, even though I have been reading for 2 or 3 months.

 

Our new family member is a hiperactive, 3 month old BC named Troy. My wife and I are looking forward to introduce him to some joyful activity such as agility, flyball or Frisbee.

 

My question here is: How do I know which one does he enjoy the most? I know he is too young to choose one right away, but do the BC show any inclination to either one as they become older?

 

Thank you in advance for your advice.

 

Later.

 

Al.

[MaggieDog]

Why not all three?? Your pup is a BC after all!

 

Just remember to have fun and no heavy exercise or jumping until about 18mo to protect your pup's joints and you should be good to go!

[Allie Oop]

Troy may just decide for you. Some dogs have no interest in balls and other's disdain the frisbee. When we first got Allie she was 6 mos. old. We started with balls, but she was totally disinterested in them. However, within a month she fell in love with flying discs of any and every kind. Now, at almost a year, she has developed a great interest in tennis balls, but frisbee is still the number 1 favorite.

 

We will be starting agility with her in a month or so, although as you've probably read, the pups shouldn't be doing jumps before 18 - 24 mos. until the growth plates close (same rule applies for frisbee and flyball). You can definitely start the dog in a beginning agility class though, and they can start learning how to work the course.

 

I recommend a good obedience class or two before you start either flyball or agility.

 

Welcome!

[Tassie]

Agree - why not all 3. Troy may well show a preference at some stage, but not necessarily.

 

A good thing to be doing for the next few months is working on foundation training and his relationship with you. This will include, but not be limited to, basic obedience. Have a look on the net for things you can safely work with a pup on.

 

Laying good foundations will mean that whichever you and Troy choose to do - (and don't forget obedience and tracking )- your path will be smoother.

 

And remember that whatever you and Troy choose to do, it's gonna be FUN (even if you hit some speed bumps along the road.)

 

Oh, and are we going to see pics of Troy?

[airbear]

When I was looking for a little female to keep my Bear company, I also was looking for my next disc dog. Well, despite having the absolute best build in the world, and an insane desire to fetch things, Wick can NOT catch a disc. Remember that episode from The Simpsons, where Santa's Little Helper takes the disc between the eyes? That's my girl!

 

So we tried flyball, and though she finds it interesting, she doesn't like to pass or be passed. Let's not even talk about sheep - what a disgrace.

 

That left agility, and she loves it. So yeah, I guess they choose, if you can call it that.

[Kat's Dogs]

With Dazzle she loves tennis balls and frisbees the most - I use those for her Agility rewards. But that makes her great for frisbee and flyball too! I think all three would be great!

 

So unless he really doesn't like frisbee (or balls) then don't do those. However, other then learning the hard stuff (the teeter is pretty scary) I have yet to see a BC that doesn't like agility.

[BCFo]

Thank you very much for all your comments.

 

I didn't know I have to wait until he is 18 months old to start jumping. Thank you for the info. Right now he is somewhat interested in the ball, but not completely.

 

My Labrador Retriever just went through training and obedience and he is doing fine, but I don't know if Troy should go through it too, since I don't want to restrain him, especially due to the collar.

 

He is responding to the call and the "no" order (I use "fui") and he already knows his name.

 

Now, when I do decide it is time to start the Agility training, which is a good procedure? Do I go one obstacle at a time or do I go through the whole course and then work on details of each obstacle?

 

I definitevely want to learn as much as possible, since the Agility trail will be lots of fun for both, Troy and me.

 

Again, thank you all for your comments and advice.

 

Al.

[Kat's Dogs]

For training Agility, I suggest you find a trainer. Unless you have trained a dog in Agility before, no amount of books, advise, or videos will ever make up the experience you get from going to a class.

 

I started Dazzle's training when she was only 9 weeks old - at that age I could only train one obstacle at a time. As she got a little older we still worked on obstacle performance alone (sending from a distance, distractions, speed/accuracy etc). Later once she was rock solid on everything (jumping clean, 100% on contacts, 100% on weaves, watching me for cues....) I started to chain stuff together.

Easy at first (like a line of jumps) but now she is doing elite level stuff in training. But I think it made getting her to that level go faster and she is more reliable because she knew the obstacles and my signals so well from all that early obstacle training. So putting it all together, even if it is a hard sequence, is easy for her - and I know that she will always hit the contact, do the weave poles first time through, jump clean.....

 

So I suggest training and getting all the obstacles really good alone first and once they ARE good (lets say you dog is great at jumping) then you can sequence jumps together - but don't put stuff together that the dog isn't 100% on, then the dog will think that missing a contact or popping out of the weave poles it OK. And we don't want that!

 

I hope that helped a bit. But remember, I really suggest to find a good trainer - but don't forget that you CAN tell a trainer how you want to train your dog. I recommend that too. If you don't like something, say something!

 

Happy training.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

You can also teach the foundations of Frisbee now. Start playing with the disc, use different ways to encourage him to fetch it up and bring it when stationary (off the ground), have him chase "rollers" - flick the disc on the ground so it rolls away on its side. When he's just shy of a year, you can start practicing floating it very low (all these exercises will help YOU learn disc control too if you aren't already good), and hovering it at eye level.

 

There's stuff you can do to prepare him for flyball, too. I'd encourage you to find a flyball club and get some tips, if there's not a class you can take.

[kelpiegirl]

I was at an agility trial this weekend, and we too use the frisbee as a reward for agility. My oldest girl Kelpie LOVES the frisbee, more than ANYTHING. Well, I took her out after her run (which was anything but flawless, but I digress) and I threw her the frisbee. Her routine is for me to cue her and she runs behind me from my right to my left and hauls butt to get it. She jumped up facing away from me, turned in mid air, faced me and caught the frisbee still in mid air. It was TOOOO cool! I never taught her any moves in frisbee. Then, my younger girl and I went out after our run, and she did something she taught herself- she jumped up for the frisbee, bumped it with her nose so it shifted away, then she caught it- while still in the air! So, this I guess goes to illustrate that frisbee dogs can be born, not trained.....

Julie

[SadieSasha]

Well Sasah would rather chase a frisbee while its rolling on the grownd insted of actually chasing it and catching it. So Frisbee was out.

 

So we started Flyball and Agility at the same time.

 

 

She liked agility but I found her BC drive kicked in more with Flyball, Because she LOVES balls, so this was better for her. She loves it. Her daddy is currently building her a flyball box so soon enough we will do some work out in our backyard.

 

Just give him a try at everything and see which one he seems to enjoy and which ones you can handle.

 

the only downfall to flyball is doing recalls at practice.. It gets a bit tyring after a while.. hehe

 

But remember, if hesonly 3 months, dont get him jumping to high already. maybe jumps that are about 1 to 4 inches. You cant let him jump big heights untill his growth plates have closed.

 

Good luck and have fun!!! Its so much fun to get out and play a sport with your dog.

[BCFo]

Well, just bought 2 discs and a ball for Troy a couple hours ago, but I didn't have time to go out to the track and run a little test.

 

So, tomorrow morning it is. Let see what happens along the way.

 

Al.

[Tassie]

Hey Al - just remember to keep everything pretty gentle (as much as you can) and low to the ground. I was just reading in a book on teaching your dog to jump safely and effectively that ideally, your pup should be restrained until the object lands/is still and then be released to get it - i.e minimising impact and/or fast and awkward turns.

 

It's so easy to get carried away and try to do more than is good for the dog. And these dogs are so keen, they'll do it - but the cost in joint damage etc. might only show up later.

 

As I said before - check for safe puppy skills training - e.g. back end awareness (trotting through a sewuence of poles on the ground, or through the rungs of a ladder laid on the ground), following your body/hand movements, focus, targeting, then contact targeting on the ground, or very low.

 

I know you're impatient - we all are/were - but if you're like me, you also still want to be doing stuff with your dog moving freely in 10 or 12 years time - and you set that up by taking time now. (OK, color me cautious. )

[border_collie_crazy]

yup all 3 works lol Happy does all 3, however flyball is far and away her favorite, EVERY last trainer that saw Happy said that she should not play flyball, they said that it is too stressfull and she would enjoy agility MUCH better. HA! Happy is a flyball dog through and through, just looking at her attitude in both situations and its obvious which one she prefers, agility stresses her out WAY more then flyball. Misty however is an agility dog, flyball scares her, she enjoys it in a mock tourniment setting, but real tournys scare the heck out of her. my point is feel free to train in all 3, troy will let you know which one he prefers