About Flyball Training For Dogs

The most important key to being successful at flyball with your dog is to lay a good foundation to build upon.  Don’t rush building a good foundation just to get at the game faster; everything you do in your training should come back to the foundation.  Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see fast results of your training right away.  It takes months of hard work and practice to get the foundation of your training set in stone.

Flyball, like any other training takes time and patience.  The results may be slow, but your dog will have a good foundation to build off of to be ready for competition.  New people entering the flyball world only see dogs running, jumping over hurdles, retrieving tennis balls, and jumping  back across the hurdles.  Flyball takes time to master.  Each section of the course has its own difficulties and to achieve the fastest time possible out of your dog in competition, you need to take the time to slow things down and practice it slowly.

All dogs are different and all dogs learn differently.  Take as long as your dog needs to get them to be the best that they can be.  Getting your dog into competition should not be one of your training goals.  Don’t bypass the fundamentals of flyball just to get into competition sooner.  More often than not, people who do this will have the slowest dogs at the competition and they often make mistakes.

Motivation and obedience is important in flyball training.  Finding a good motivator will help bring out the traits in your dog, like drive, and will help you to win.  Through positive training and positive reinforcement, handlers can have their dogs giving them 120% every time.  Obedience training is important in flyball only when it comes to positive motivation.  Throw out all the negative motivators that you learned in your obedience classes and only focus on the positives.  Positive approaches, as a general rule, will always produce the best results.

Flyball is a great way to compete with your dog and do something they will love to do.  Burning off excess energy and having fun along the way, you and your dog will build an everlasting bond together.  Take your time during training, find a motivator for your dog and stay positive.  Welcome to the flyball world!