Practice: Turn-with-ball has gotten smoother!

Could be that his recent hiatus from boxwork has helped Walter smooth out his turn. The mid-turn pause was gone today. Used pouch treat for reward. His "drive" toward the ball was actually ok today, not fantastic, but better than in a long time. Started him from behind just one jump, with the ball on the ledge and the gutter at the box. Didn't run with him at all. A good practice for Walter, yay!

Practice

For recalls, we put the lanes right next to each other. Walter ran against Sammy and wasn't thrilled about her passing him but by his third recall he was doing much better. Good boy!

On the ball front: Didn't warm him up with any tossed balls, just went straight into some dead ball retrieves (no jumps or box involved; someone would bounce the ball or I would throw it to them and they would set it at their feet) and it was totally lame. Like, *totally* lame. Well, on the bright side at least Walter's not lame and is totally fantastic on the health front! :-)

Open practice in Navan

Walter did some recalls at the open practice held Saturday evening during the open practice of FBI's "Come Fly in July" tournament. He's not bad at the running towards me part of flyball; it's the rest of the game that we're having trouble with :-D

Practice: new strategy

Trying yet another strategy for helping Walter in his flyball student career: Have decided to not do any boxwork at all for a while, but instead when it's his turn we just play fetch with the ball being thrown up the lane (no jumps though) towards where the box would be. He brings it back for a game of tug. The idea is I want to see him as excited to play fetch at practice as he is at the local field, or at least close to that level of excitement. If he's not excited about chasing a live ball at practice, how can I expect him to be excited about going after a dead one, nevermind a dead one where he has to do a weird acrobatic maneouver before taking it? Over a few practices we'll ease into the ball becoming gradually less live and more dead.

Today he was definitely into it, no problem running up the lane all by his widdle self to chase the rolling ball. I hadn't removed the jumps and they kind of got in the way (if I had perfect aim, or heck, even decent aim, it would be a different story) so next time I'll move the jumps out of the way first.

Practice

Instead of doing boxwork we worked on getting him to take a ball from someone's hand. At first he wasn't into it, so L threw the ball for him a few times. After that, he decided it was an ok game to play. For his second session, K held the ball for him.

He's dropping the ball not long after picking it up, but I'm not too worried about that at this point.

Open practice (big grassy field)

Today was Walter's first time at the open flyball practice. His degree of interest was actually surprisingly high given that it was a fairly warm day. Did a few recalls and one round of boxwork. The practice leader suggests instead of using the music stand, to have someone hand him the ball after he does his turn, but only if he does a good smooth turn. So, homework is to get him taking a ball from my hand and other people's hands.

Boxturn breakthrough!!!!!!

As I was watching Walter do his slow-mo, step-by-step turn today at home, it suddenly struck me that he goes straight up to the ball. Impossible to have a flowing turn with that kind of approach. At least, impossible for Walter. If only there were something for him to go around, like a knee, or something, to shape an arc into his boxturn.

So I tried putting the gutter at a 90 degree angle to the box, creating two separate paths, one for his approach to the box and one for his departure. Didn't work: he used the departure path for his approach as well as his departure.

Ok, back to the idea of something more knee-ish. Having no spare knees around, I grabbed the next best thing: a music stand. I put it so that one of its feet slid under the box to stabilize it so that it wouldn't get knocked over if Walter should brush against it. The gutter went in its usual place.

Well, holy moly! Instant boxturn transformation! I was amazed, thrilled, and perhaps even stunned as I watched his first try at it and saw the old, flowing turn he did once upon a time many, many moons ago. Unfortunately, with the box sprung and his new style, his mouth isn't in the right place yet so the ball was shooting out way in front of him. So, I unsprung the box. Success!! His next try, same thing! Woo hoo! Grabbed the camera to get some video of this momentous occasion. :-D

An aha moment?

Have the box at home this week. It's now being fully sprung every time, but Walter continues to do his slow-mo turn. (only when the ball is there. without a ball, it's a normal, flowy turn.) Dang.

The aha moment is that I think I might have found a way to help motivate him for going to the box.

You see, one of Walter's favourite activities, nay, perhaps his very most favouritest activity ever, is playing fetch. With a ball, tug, flying squirrel, whatever. When we play fetch, he has to earn the throw by doing a trick or three for me. (Sit, down, stand, left, right, hand touch, and bow are the extent of our current reportoire. Should really work on expanding that, but oh well.) He gets all excited while doing the tricks, knowing that the throw is coming up.

SO.... this week at home, instead of holding him and trying to rev him up and bowling him to the box, I've started to have him to do a trick or two before letting him go to the box to get the ball. It seems to be working! He gets all excited doing the tricks and then runs the whole 3 or 4 meters to the box faster than ever before. (which, for the record, isn't exactly the speed of lighting. more along the lines of the speed of rumbling thunder.) Of course, as previously mentioned, the turn is still slowmo, but hopefully this is a step in the right direction!

Team practice

Another so-so practice for Walter.

I really want to get the box sprung as soon as possible so that he breaks the habit of his step-by-step boxturn. Sent him from behind either no jumps or just one jump.

Even being sent from so close to the box, he has so little forward drive at practice. Ok, let's get real here - make that none at all! Should work more on dead balls in lots of different places. Brought the box home to work towards getting it sprung.

Here's a little video of today's practice as well as a clip of his mom in the racing lanes! I think she's the prettiest and awesomest Flyball Dog ever! :^)

Back into it

My my, Walter's flyball has been terribly neglected lately due mostly to agility and Lucy's flyball tournaments. At the Trenton tournament last weekend a lightbulb came on for me: Now that Walter knows how to settle and relax flyball-ringside, it's time to key him back up and get him tugging in the midst of all that noise and activity! So I brought out his new favourite tug and we tugged while the races were going on. He did pretty well.

Yes, his new favourite tug is one that's been kicking around buried in the car trunk for a while that we had hardly ever used. Well, a while back we drove to a park and I realized we hadn't brought his usual fetch/tug toys so why not try that one. A few outings with that toy and he's crazy for it now! It's the pocket fire hose tug from Crash Test Toys. I cut the loop handle to make a longer non-loop handle with a knot on the end. Only problem is, it's so short that he sometimes catches my hand, owwwwwwch. An order for a new longer one has been placed. :-)

This is the tug we've been using for tracking and as I said he really, really loves it. So, gonna start using it for flyball in the hopes that his enthusiasm for it will transfer to the flyball game.

Did some dead ball retrieves rewarding with this tug today. Oh yeah and he seems to prefer being held by the waist instead of the collar. Can't wait to get back into flyball practice and get this guy on track! How sad that it's two years ago June that he was first introduced to the ball with the turn. Sigh!!!