CockersOnline Forum
Cocker Activities => Other Activities => Topic started by: Fluff on March 06, 2014, 04:12:22 PM
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Daisy is off to her first ever flyball session on Saturday! I'm very excited and I'm sure she would be too if she knew :005: They said they had a few working cockers there so at least she won't be a complete shock when she arrives like a whirling dervish!
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Good luck. We are having our first one at the end of the month :)
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We had a great time!!! They said Daisy was a natural and picked it up as fast as any dog could. She was so focused on the ball and was a little star, I'm so pleased and we will be back next week for sure.
She was just doing run backs, at first watching my OH run over the jumps and then following and then with him waiting at end and calling her.
Hard to get decent pics but here are a few:
(http://i.imgur.com/JgES3KD.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/1UuHObs.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/ZHCK5zH.jpg)
And on way home:
(http://i.imgur.com/4uJMW0F.jpg)
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Bless lovely pictures :blink: Millie has been doing flyball for a few months and loves it - she gets so excited and is shattered when we get home :005: Cockers are good in the team as they are 'height' dogs (so the jumps can be lower for the bigger dogs. Enjoy :lol:
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Awww I have only just seen this (loads of missed posts at the minute). Looks great. Would love to get Bonnie into either flyball or agilty but we have nothing suitable locally. Daisy is gorgeous....biased I know but she is :luv: :luv:
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Looks awesome, I can't wait to take Jack, he's like a little whippet he runs so fast so should be good at it. How old do the dogs have to be before they can start?
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Most places say a year but we are just doing the gentle beginners stuff with Daisy and not doing too much so they were happy with her doing it a little bit younger!
Red, I think Bonnie and Daisy could be twins :005: Both such gorgeous girls!
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It looks like Daisy had a lot of fun at flyball training :D
We had a lovely young working cocker boy start recently and the owner was pleased to report he actually slept when they got home after class! He such a happy boy and wags his whole body :luv:
As a cocker owner I am always pleased to see more cockers trying flyball and enjoying themselves. The sport used to be dominated by collies but our club now probably has more non-collies, we seem to attract a lot of spaniel types ;) It is good for multibreed competitions though as we can normally enter a few teams and as someone else pointed out cockers generally bring the jump heights down.
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Well just shows how much I know. Last time I googled fly ball nothing came up. Ive just searched again and there are 2 clubs in Mansfield! Will look into this further.
Can anyone give me some advice on the sort of experience/training needed to join?
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The place we take her just asked for well socialised dogs with decent recall :) We have no experience :005: but the beginner classes are for total novices :)
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Redked I think the regional rep for your area is Emma Foody. If you email her - emmafoody@hotmail.com - she should be able to give you details of the flyball clubs nearest to you. You may have seen the Mansfield Marnicks on TV as they won the flyball at Crufts this year :D
There is also a map with most clubs details on the British Flyball Association site: http://www.flyball.org.uk/flyball_map.php
You don't really need any experience, good basic training helps but it is new environment and a lot of dogs get distracted at first. I just ask our new starters to bring high value treats and we do work with tuggies to see what motivates each dog. Having a good reward normally helps focus the dog on their handler ;)
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We're quite lucky as Daisy is a ball fiend, nay, obsessive, so the reward for her is getting to fetch the ball and bring it back because she loves to do that! They asked me to stand away from run so OH could do some runs with her in case she was distracted, but as I expected, the minute she saw there was a ball, I didn't even exist :005: She was quite distracted before the ball came out though as it was a new place with lots of new people and new dogs, so she was spinning around on her lead a bit but she did settle.
We have an indoor session tonight so I will report back! :shades:
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Thats great Tangytango, thank you. I will give Emma a quick email to see if they have a beginners class nearby (might wait a month though as she was only spayed 2 weeks ago). Have wanted to do some activity with Bons since her pup classes stopped but had a couple of bad experiences with the agility classes/trainer I found >:( When I looked at fly ball there was nothing. Hope this works out xx
Fluff, Bonnie is definitely related to Diasy; she lives for her tennis ball. Highest value treat even above raw meat :005: So they look identical and are very much alike too. Hope that gets us a bonus point for fly ball! XxX
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Only just seen this too. What great pics. I would love to have tried Archie with fly ball. It of course there is NO way he would give up the ball at the end of the run! :shades:
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Our second session was great, three cockers there so it was chaos :005: But Daisy did great! She doesnt like to give the ball up either! :005: Luckily not mega important for flyball it seems!
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Most dogs who do flyball are ball obsessive to some degree :005: One of mine is reluctant to give a ball up outside of flyball, particularly if we have 1 ball and 5 dogs, but at training he loves working for a tuggy.
We break flyball training down into small parts and don't introduce a ball at first but each club will train differently as there are no rules ;) We sometimes use a clicker to shape ramp/box work to get the turn right as that is probably the hardest part. I know from experience if you don't get a good turn to start with it is very hard to improve later >:(
The main thing is flyball should be fun for you both :D
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Here's a video of our third session this morning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzGYA-bD2iU
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Here's a video of our third session this morning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzGYA-bD2iU
Wow she's so fast! Looks like she is definitely enjoying it :)
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Blink and you miss it!! :lol2:
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Looks brill. I am definitely going to make enquiries once Bonnie has healed internally from her spay. Itooks like great fun xx
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Hi I was wondering if anyone has a flyball box for sale? Or could recommend where to buy one? It;s just for a different dimension to retrieval at home in the garden, not for competition. Thank you