Possible sports prospect in my new foster, how to judge and promote?

Dagwall

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#1
So my new foster girl Lizzy is very ball/toy motivated as well as decently food motivated. Seems to have pretty high prey drive as well, or maybe just not used to walks in the woods and going crazy with suddenly being around all this "wildlife." Lots of squirrels, fair number of deer, birds, chipmunks, occasional fox. She walks somewhat decently (still pulls at times but not horribly) in the neighborhood but is lunging and pulling all over the place when we walk the trails in the woods.

Anyways, she LOVES to play fetch. Some where along the line someone did teach her nice rules for fetch. She drops and backs away from the toy the second you start to reach for it and eagerly awaits your throw. She catches pretty decently as well.

I've only had her just under a week so it's really too soon to make any definitive statements but she seems to have a decent off switch. Though she went a bit overboard last night when I didn't put the ball away. She kept playing herself and occasionally nudging/tossing the ball at me or my brother. Once I put the ball away she cried and searched for a bit but before too long she settled and took a nap.

So the question is how else to I judge if she'd possibly be a good sports dog? She seems drivey, very toy motivated, food motivated, the high end of moderate energy. And if she is a good sports dog is there a good place to try and market her as such? She'll be out at adoption events with me 2-3 weekends a month anyways but some place specifically people may look for possible sports prospect rescue dogs? I did a google search and did find a website but the most recent listings I saw were from 2012 so I don't think it is a functioning list anymore.

I don't think she NEEDS a sports home so it's not overly important but I do think she'd enjoy one.
 

Sekah

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#2
What's her size? What's her structure like?

I can't really point you in the right direction, but I might recommend liaising with other people who have a reputation for placing sports dogs in homes to get their opinion and possibly their help.
 

Dagwall

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#3
Still need to get some better pictures but here is a short video of her first night home and discovering her ball crazy and two pictures. Need to take her over to my vets just to use their scale, I'd guess she is around 30 lbs. just a bit shorter than Jubel so around 16-17" maybe. Biggest draw back I've seen so far is she can get car sick on longer rides.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNiK6sISjXc&feature=youtu.be

http://i.imgur.com/QBExvUd.jpg



Edit: first picture was giant for some reason so edited out embedding.
 

DJEtzel

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#6
My recommendation would be to take videos (short ones!) of her playing fetch, tug in a few distracting environments (around dogs/people/at a park), and maybe learning a simple trick like spin with food. Post them on facebook, and tag dog friends/sport friends with "Sport prospect?" in the title/caption.

That's how most people that I know place dogs, and it works fantastically.
 

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