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GSD’s and Flyball
by Pat Saito and Tasha BH,CD,TT,FDCh
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When you think of German Shepherd sports, flyball rarely comes to mind.
Competitive flyball has always been primarily a "Border Collie" sport and has
not attracted a large number of German Shepherds. In fact, there are only about 128 GSDs
registered in the North American Flyball Association (NAFA) which is the governing body
for flyball in North America. Of those, 43 had earned the Flyball Dog Champion title
(FDCh) as of March 1998. Compare this to 1500 Border Collies registered.
Now its isn’t because GSDs aren’t good flyball dogs..the top
GSDs in flyball have earned high honours and are exceptionally fast..as fast as some
border collies in fact!! I think that many GSD owners just aren’t aware of the
existence of the sport or haven’t found a place to train their wonderful dogs.
I have been running flyball with my now 4 1/2 year old GSD, Tasha for
about 2 years. We compete on a team called Silver Bullets. We are not a tremendously fast
team but we have a lot of fun and we have won some ribbons in tournaments as well as
earning titles. Tasha’s fastest recorded running time is 5.5 seconds.
What is Flyball?
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Flyball is a team sport that is open to any dog regardless of breed or size. A flyball
competition consists of two teams of four dogs each racing against each other to complete
the course first. The course is four hurdles and a flyball box that shoots a tennis ball.
Each dog on the team must jump over the four hurdles, jump on the box to activate the
spring that releases the tennis ball. The dog catches the tennis ball in her mouth, spins
around and returns with the ball back over the four hurdles to her handler.
Split timing is required on the part of the handlers who must release their dog at just
the right time so that the dogs pass over the start line nose to nose. If the dog is
released late, it takes the team longer to run the heat. If the dog is released early and
passes the start line before the returning dog, the dog is red flagged and must rerun,
adding even longer to the team time. The team that completes the course in the fastest
time wins that heat. Races are generally run in the best three out of five heats.
The height of the hurdles varies from team to team. It all depends on the height of the
smallest dog on the team (the height dog). The dogs are measured and the hurdle is set 4
inches lower than the dog’s recorded height. This means that teams with small dogs
such as Jack Russell Terriers can jump hurdles as low as 8" inches (the lowest
height) while an opposing team with no small dogs could be jumping 16 inches (the maximum
height). As you can imagine, JRTs and other small, fast dogs are in great demand in
competition.
How fast is flyball?
The top flyball teams are very fast. The world record is currently held by Total Recall
of Ontario, Canada and is 16.35 seconds. That is the time it takes four dogs to run the
course. Team times vary in tournaments from 17 seconds all the way up to 30 seconds or
more. Teams enter a "seed time" when they compete. This is usually determined by
finding the best time the team can run and adding 1 second. Some teams use this method and
others just enter their best time. Teams are then placed into Divisions so that they
compete with other teams with similar speed. For example in a recent tournament, our team
was seeded at 23 seconds. We competed in a division with teams whose times ranged from
22.8 seconds to 23.25 seconds.
In order to encourage teams to enter fair times, each division is assigned a
"breakout time". This is one second faster than the fastest team in the
division. In the tournament above, the breakout time was 21.8 seconds. Any team that runs
a heat in less than 21.8 seconds "breaks out". The team loses the heat and, if
they breakout three times in a tournament, they are ineligible to place in their division.
So you can see how important accurate seeding is. Without this rule, fast teams could
potentially enter slower times in order to run against slower teams and win the division.
This way, all teams should be competing against their equals, making for more exciting and
fair competition. In fact, racing even in the slower divisions can be a nail biting
experience. One of our heats was won by us by only .004 seconds..that's a whisker of any
dog.
Training in Flyball
Your dog needs certain skills in order to participate in flyball at either a fun or
competitive level. These include, jumping, returning to the handler (recall), activating
the box, catching the ball, passing another dog in a 3’ wide space, and ignoring the
other team. Lets look at these skills in the order in which you can teach them. I advise
teaching each skill separately before putting them all together in a flyball course
(lane).
The recall:
The first skill is one that you can start when you first get your puppy..the recall.
Through play, you teach your pup to come to you. You can get someone to hold your dog
while you run away a short distance (gradually increase the distance). Call the dog and
run a bit farther as he runs to you. When he returns, he gets a major jackpot. This can be
a toy, some tug play, a tossed ball, food or just lots of praise..whatever works for your
dog. Most dogs that have any ball drive at all have no problem running TO the box to get
the ball. The trick is getting your dog to return to you once he has the reward. You must
make the recall as rewarding as getting the ball is. My GSD, Tasha, loves tennis balls and
will run full speed to the box. We have to work hard on the recalls though as she tends to
chew on the ball on the way back. Its hard for me to find a reward that means as much to
her as getting the tennis ball once she gets going. You will find that flyball is great
exercise for the handler as well as the dog. As you can see, you will do a lot of running
in the recall.
Jumping:
The second skill is jumping. The dog must be able to jump over hurdles. As I said the
height varies, so you have to train the dog to jump any height between 8-16". This is
certainly not hard for a GSD. In fact, it takes a lot of urging to convince a GSD to run
and not step over the lower hurdles. When our team started competing, we had to run at
15" height. Tasha actually became faster as she now did a single step jump betwen the
hurdles. When we acquired a height dog in 1998, I feared her time would get slower but
luckily she maintained the speed and even got faster.
Teaching jumping can also start when your GSD is a pup but a word of warning here! Do
not let your GSD jump over high jumps until their bones have finished growing - you
may have a young dog that is awesome in flyball but you, and more importantly the dog,
will likely pay for it later on when he develops hip or elbow problems. I only let my dogs
jump 6 inch maximum in training while under a year and then no higher than 8 inches until
at least 18 months. This ensures no stress on those growing bones. It is not necessary to
practice your dog at any higher than that..they can learn the skill as well on low jumps
as they can on high ones and its better for them. Don’t try any formal work until the
dog is at least 9 months old..keep it fun and keep it simple..one jump at a time is
enough. As the dog progresses, you can gradually add another jump until eventually the dog
will jump 4 in a row. At the beginning the dog can be on leash but you want to work
towards off leash jumping as soon as possible. Listen to your dog, he will tell you when
he is ready.
Passing other dogs:
If your dog has been properly socialized with other dogs, this part shouldn’t be a
problem but it still requires work. The goal is to have your dog run past another dog
coming in the opposite direction without stopping to play, greet or bark or growl at the
other dog. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. While the first two skills can be trained
at home on your own, this is one that should be one in a controlled setting under a
capable instructor.
As all trainers have their own methods, I’ll talk about how Tasha and I learned
this. With the dogs on leash, we were required to "walk" them over a set of low
flyball hurdles while another handler walked his/her dog from the opposite end of the
lane. Sometimes the dogs had to pass while stepping over the hurdle. Sometimes they were
in between two hurdles on the flat. If the dogs turned to the other dog, we corrected them
as required. I use an "off" command to tell Tasha to leave anything alone. I
soon found that my GSD has great prey drive. She had little problem passing big dogs but
those little fluff balls were a great temptation to her. We worked through that and now
she is reliable in competition regardless of what dogs are running in the lane beside us.
Once the dogs can do this at a walk, we progressed to a slow trot and finally to a run.
We spent many weeks doing this on leash before any dogs were allowed to pass off leash.
Once the dogs were passing off leash, if they reverted and growled at a passing dog, on
went the leash. Because flyball involves at least 8 dogs at a time running in a frenzy of
excitement and barking, you don’t want your dog getting so excited, he or she takes
off after another dog..on your own team or on the opposing teams.
Obedience?
Its been asked that, as flyball is a fun sport, why does your dog need obedience
training. In my opinion, obedience is critical for the safety of all the dogs, including
your own. If your dog wont come when called, if he runs after other dogs, if he ignores
simple commands, then your dog isn’t ready for flyball. Just think about what could
happen if you have an untrained dog who runs to the box, gets the ball, but instead of
coming right to you, he ignores your command and decides to run to the other team’s
lane. The worst result could be a dog fight. The least is that your team loses the heat
for interference.
The Box
Did you notice I left this part to the end? This was by far the most difficult skill to
teach my GSD. In fact, it took some convincing to get her to approach this large wooden
thing that spit balls at her face. Tasha wanted the ball but she didn’t want to jump
on the box to get it. Once she conquered her fear of the box, she tried to get the ball
out of the hole with her teeth (cheating). She was successful as most GSDs are and got her
reward. That posed a challenge for me..to ensure she didn’t get the ball unless she
jumped on the box with at least one paw to activate the spring and shoot the ball out.
The best way to get your dog used to the box is to just let the dog explore it with no
balls in it. Let him climb on it, check it out, sniff it. Then have someone put a tennis
ball into the box. With your dog on leash run to the box and hit the box with your foot or
hand. Voila a ball pops out and hits your dog in the nose!! Gee mom this isn’t any
fun!! Oops we forgot to train catching the ball!!!
Lets take a step back. While at home or in the park, stand about 2 feet from your puppy
or dog. Holding the tennis ball in your hand throw it directly at your dogs nose. First
ball will likely hit him as he wont know to open his mouth for it, but pretty soon his
survival instinct will click in and he will start catching the ball. From here its easy to
move this skill to catching the ball from the box.
There are as many ways to teach the dog how to activate the box as there are breeds of
dogs. I taught Tasha to jump on the pedal once she found that catching the ball was fun.
She had to want to make the ball come out. She had to know that she only got it if SHE
made it happen. I literally had to lift her front two paws and make her hit the box..this
isn’t something that comes naturally to a dog you know. If you have a box at home and
lots of time you can just let your dog take his time exploring until one day he steps on
it and out pops a ball. If you don’t have all that time, you may have to show your
dog where the pedal is and what she has to do to make it pop out a ball.
Putting it all together
OK, your dog can now jump over four hurdles. he runs to you from distance when you call
him. he can activate the flyball box and he can catch the ball and hold it. He can walk
and run past another dog and ignore the dog. That’s great but your dog isn’t
running flyball yet!
In order to be ready to compete, your dog has to run the hurdles away from you to the
box. He has to jump on the pedal, catch the ball and do that fantastic recall, passing
another dog on the way to or from the box, or both.
As this has to be done either with a team or in a flyball class, I will not try to
explain how to do this. Suffice it to say, you don’t do it in one lesson. You start
with small steps. Sending the dog to the box from directly in front of it, running him
back over one jump and reward. The you send him from behind one jump and run back over 2,
gradually increasing the number of jumps until he is running to the box over all four and
running back over all four. you don’t add the passing until the dog is reliable at
this.
If you persevere and are patient, it wont be long until you have your dog running
flyball. The benefits are well worth the work. Competing on a team is tremendous
socialization for your dog. The exercise for both of you is an added benefit. If you have
ever watched a flyball tournament and listened to the dogs barking in delight as they wait
for their turn to run, you will understand how much fun the dogs are having.
If your GSD has good ball drive and likes to jump, then maybe this is the sport for
you. It doesn’t hurt to give it a try and you may find its well worth the effort. For
more information on flyball, visit the flyball
website.
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