- April, 2008 -
Question:
Our club is organizing lessons for teaching people & dogs new to flyball. What topics would you suggest we cover over an 8 week beginner class? Some of our people have experience in other dog sports (agility, disc dog), but not all.
Answer:
Lee: You should start out with jumping exercises, working into restrained recalls over all four jumps. This should progress into learning the box turn. If your students don't have access to a box at home they can lean a piece of plywood against a wall at the proper angle so that they can practice box turns at home. Once the dog knows how to turn, you should incorporate catching the ball out of the box. The next progression would be to doing short runs where the dog goes over one jump to the box, catches the ball, and returns over the same jump to the handler. This can be expanded into full runs by adding one jump to the exercise as the dog completes each step successfully. Of course, the progression of the dog will be very dependant on how much work your students do at home in between each lesson.
Pam: All sorts of things can happen and fast when you get several new dogs together. So for safety reasons, it's best to have two instructors. It will take two to teach and manage the highly active class, usually filled with dogs and owners who "feel the need for speed".
First class: We start with a quick overview of "What is flyball?" We give a live demonstration of a couple of dogs doing a full run. Then we get right into action, letting the hair fly by teaching the fun of recalls.
Each week we train over jumps using baby gates to minimize mistakes. We will need to know which way left or right each dog turns and teach the box turn. Over the weeks we include setting up a television so we can show tournament racing. We'll cover the history of the sport and equipment they will need. We usually have several overweight dogs come to class and so we spend time talking about the importance of diets, weight management and getting in shape. It may be necessary to divide the class as some dogs can excel more quickly than others.
Aaron: We run our classes like our practices. We take only 4-6 dogs per hour and teach each dog individually twice in that hour. Each dog works for 5-10mins and then they have a break. This is so we don't work them to death and reward slow, tired behavior. We start by using food and teaching them to push a target board. We also start doing recalls to a tug toy. We show our students how to teach a proper ball retrieve. Usually after eight weeks the dogs can recall over four jumps and catch the ball out of the box while doing a four paw turn.
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