The information on this page was written by Jacqueline Parkin. She has been involved in canine education for more than fourteen years and has titled nine flyball dogs of her own. She has worked for veterinarians, is the founder and director of Canadian Animal Actors and Casting, trains animals for movies, commercials, and still photography, breeds BC's, and has been an acquaintance of mine now for about two years. Jacqueline is also the author of FLYBALL TRAINING...Start to Finish, a MUST for everyones library. You can purchase Jacquelines book by clicking on the book photo above this paragraph...it will link you directly to Chapters online.


WHAT IS FLYBALL?

Flyball is a relay race in which dogs race over a series of 4 hurdles to retrieve a tennis ball from a specially designed flyball box. The dog must push a pedal on the front of the box in order to activate a trigger mechanism that releases the ball. When the tennis ball is thrust from the box, the dog catches it and brings it back over the 4 hurdles to his handler. As he crosses the start/finish line, another dog races past him to repeat the same procedure. Teams of 4 dogs race against each other for the win.

The flyball course is currently 51 feet long. It consists of 4 hurdles and a flyball box. The first hurdle is set 6 feet from the start/finish line, and the other 3 hurdles are positioned 10 feet apart. The flyball box is placed 15 feet from the last hurdle.

One of the most important things to teach your dog in flyball is to focus on YOU. Your dog cannot be allowed to fixate on, or chase other dogs. For this reason, it is very important to teach your dog to relinquish resources. Aggression is absolutely not tolerated by the North American Flyball Association and a dog can be banned from competition for aggression.

In a good flyball course you should learn the elements of the game before putting the flyballl course together. The elements of the game include...jumping skills, retrieving skills, handler chase and focus, targeting, relinguishing resources, and developing a style of retrieve that promotes a swimmers turn off the flyball box. You should learn the basic skills involved in the flyball game and then build on those skills as you progress. Each lesson should build on the previous lesson.

Before embarking in flyball training, your dog should be familiar with (and hopefully skilled at) basic obedience excercises so that he/she is under control. This is very important because flyball is a very exciting sport and your dog will not be on leash...therefore, you will have to be able to control him/her with your voice.

Your dog should be at least 6 months of age before embarking on flyball training. The repetitive jumping and also the impact to the shoulders, elbows, pasterns when hitting the flyball box, can be detrimental to a young dogs growing bones and can cause damage to the growth plates. Most dogs growth plates are not fully closed until approximately 8 months of age. All your initial training should be done on very low jump heights. If you are training in agility, the same common sense rules apply.

We also recommend that you check out the following websites...the North American Flyball Association and the British Flyball Association.