Disc Dog Training

That's okay, lol, I was wondering if you and Linds both fell off the face of the earth though! lol

I've been practicing my own throwing (with Ozzy, because he can actually catch them ) instead of trying to throw differently with a dog who's inexperienced. I'm just now learning the forehand throw and the disc is all over the freaking place lol. With the backhand I can use my arm or my wrist to snap it out, and they generally go exactly where I want them to go. I'll definitely have to practice getting the disc to hover. I know it can be done because I've done it unintentionally, I suppose it's also just a matter of practice.

I'm going to keep making Oz fetch them though lol, it's easier than running out to fetch the disc myself every time, though that might be a sufficient motivator for me to get it right, hahaha

I really, really recommend throwing without a dog while you are trying new throws. Find someone to go out with you, so that you can practice aiming for something which will help your throw tremendously. Also, you aren't putting your dog in danger by throwing weird throws that they may have to jump and twist to catch.

Sorry! I've been mainlining Supernatural lately. Yes, I am using that as an excuse because as sad as it is it's pretty much spot on

Yay!! Lots of foundation stuff you can start And tricks, soooo many tricks!

Pretty much what everyone said, practice, practice, practice.

I put off throwing sooo long with Didgie because she wasn't catching them so I just kept doing rollers. Sara finally yelled at me and I buckled down and started throwing and things started coming together.

Shorter throws while slowly increasing distance and throwing like Sara said should help a lot along with takes that she has to work at a little bit, either make her move towards you to grab them or jump up a bit. Help her figuring out how to grab them best and that jumping up to grab them is entirely possible!

Also, how are you throwing? Multiple discs? Is she doing an 'around' you to get them? Starting in front of you or at your side? Are you throwing them back and forth so she runs across you each time to get it?

And good job rewarding heavily each time she catches!! That's going to help a lot!

Traveler isn't a huge tugging fiend. It's getting better more and more I work on it but it still isn't intrinsically rewarding yet. I use longer throws for him and sometimes rollers for him as rewards. Those keep his head in the game better than tugging right now and keep his interest longer.

So basically I would feel around for what she finds most rewarding in that. Food can work, but like Sara said you might want to fade that out pretty fast.

It's hard to get my head around because she LOVES tug. Just... not with plastic. She will tug like a fiend with a tug toy, with a fabric disc, with a rubber disc... but not with a plastic one. I'm getting some Super Aeros and SofFlites this weekend though so maybe she'll be more geared up for tugging with those since they're more flexible.

New problem is that we can basically never work outside in our backyard anymore. Too cold and too dark except during the day. We are almost entirely working at our indoor location, but it is relatively new. Although I've gotten her onto the tug toy well there we are still having issues with the disc. Also, I can't do rollers there because the footing is sand. Boo.

But yes, I'm hoping softer discs will help. I don't think food is the answer because I think she will lose interest in the disc and just want food. Longer throws/rollers is a good idea (except rollers are out now at the indoor arena and she can't catch longer throws yet). Well, we'll see. Hoping for a disc dog workshop sometime this winter.

My husband's dog wasn't a huge tugger forever, the super aero's helped sooo much. Even now, when we are in a new environment and he's a little too distracted to tug, I'll have my husband pull out the super aero's. Now we can get him to tug on anything, but no way that would've happened right away!

Also, thanks Sara! I'm hoping Ozzy and I can get a routine down and maybe visit a few competitions down here. If he has work to focus on, he's less inclined to be reactive or bark his fool head off at other dogs, so we'll be practicing some stuff and see what I can come up with. I want to teach him a vault, but I'm not sure where to start with that one, or even which vault to start with. He'd be easiest to teach a stall to as well, but I think I'm going to teach a back stall instead of a foot stall first. I'm working on building up my own leg strength, and I don't want to drop him on top of me and damage his confidence. Not that I really think that would bother him, being dropped, but I think me yelling out might keep him from wanting to try again

Update: Kili likes the new discs. Still doesn't want to tug with them anymore, but yesterday we played at our new indoor arena for the first time and man can the girl catch! My camera had died but next time we're there I'll get some footage as proof!

Alright guys, I need some help.

I am not sure if it has been the switch to canine discs (even though I've got the softest ones I could... Super Aeros and SofFlites) or the move to an indoor sand arena (can't do rollers and the dogs can't pick the discs up if they drop without getting a mouthful of sand)... but Kili has lost complete interest in the disc.

[YOUTUBE]veTharzG9mg[/YOUTUBE]

As you can see... I have resorted to acting like a total fool. Throwing the disc and chasing after it, having a party with it. She's excited until I suggest she actually do something. Then she's like "nope... I'm going to go sniff or eat horse poop or just look around". I've tried racing her to the disc and if I get there first the disc is mine and I get to have a huge party. That tactic worked GREAT when I was trying to get her onto tug toys... doesn't seem so great with the disc. What I also did (not on video though) was let her watch from her crate as I played with Summit. Summit is happy to chase and retrieve most things I throw and act like a huge fun loving baffoon about it. Which got Kili SCREAMING in her crate. I thought "well, I'm not going to let you have it now that you want it". Then that last segment in the video... I had just finished doing some rally practice with her and for whatever reason it got her totally JACKED so I broke out the disc and that was the best all night.

Right now I'm thinking my plan is to play with the disc with Summit every time we go to the indoor (once to twice a week) for a couple of sessions and not let Kili have a disc AT ALL. Let her get super peeved that I'm having fun with Summit. Then break the disc out randomly one session and see what happens.

What else can I do? Why is she so turned off by the disc all of a sudden? You've seen all our early training... it was always FUN FUN FUN! There have been only the two changes... disc change (no more tugging, she doesn't like the harder plastic) and location change.

Thanks for any thoughts or ideas!

I don't kow that this is specifically disc dog related, but Talon just showed me he can jump on my back like it's no big deal! :hail:

I know that's probably not much for most of you guys, but Talon's rear has always been a bit weak compared to his front. I tried getting him to jump on my back a long while ago, but he use to claw and climb rather than jump. It wasn't fear of getting on something unstable, it was the work to jump up. We than worked on jumping up to a platform and balancing a bit, but haven't done that in over a month.

I don't know where it came from, but I kinda leaned down suddenly to play with Art and suddenly Talon was on my back! He didn't claw, or struggle to get up either. He just landed on my back like a feather!! I was so shocked, and excited! I did it a few more times and he did so good.

I'm mostly excited because it tells me his back end is indeed getting stronger! Now I get to continue to work on balance and strength!

That's so awesome!

I also recently had some breakthroughs with Onyx's back stall, it is really exciting!

Although (I was warned!) she totally has started doing it randomly when I bend over now. I was out working in the bush the other day and she kept launching herself at me whenever I would bend over. Luckily I just think it's cute, and she hasn't tried doing it to anyone else yet...

HAHA yeah, I was warned about that as well, so far we are doing good about not jumping on my back unless I ask, but I'm sure he'll get there

Congrats on your success with the back stall! ^_^ I really love it when they suddenly "get" something ^_^

I need help with Circus!

I've been practicing my throws on my own so I can throw them low and straight pretty consistently. Circus started leaping for discs today, but she has this problem where her legs collapse under her upon landing (about half of the time) - she'll roll/slide on the grass after falling. She's 8.5 mo now and probably jumping a little less than a foot. Our disc sessions are about 4min long or less. This can't be normal, right? What should I do?

Unless it's a physical problem (which I'm sure you'd notice LOL), it sounds like she's just forgetting to land, not caring about landing, or focusing too much on something else and not about where her feet are. Common in younger and/or new dogs.

Have you done rollers with her at all too? Rollers help teach the dog to confidently grab a disc in motion. That way, when you start throwing them, they have to worry less about the catch and they can focus on the landing. I'd also try as hard as possible to get those discs low for a running catch (build on good catches w/o jumps), and get it out further in front of her.

Disc placement is important. A slow disc that a new dog has all the time in the world to get to might lead to a pogo jump (straight up, landing on the back feet like a pogo stick, chance of injury is increased). Instead, work on good running disc grabs, slowly increasing the high to jump for it, etc. Get that disc out in front of her too. As dogs gain experience and skill, you can start to float slow discs and they'll have clean catches, but you can't do that with a dog that's just learning (because of the pogo jump).

I don't know how old Circus is but it also might help to set up an agility jump and ask for a disc take that she needs to jump the bar to get (so disc placement is just past the bar after the jump). She'll learn to jump, grab, land and not worry so much about the disc's flight pattern, etc. Make it nice and easy to practice that jump, grab, land. Muscle memory it up

I'm so glad you responded! I was worried that she had muscle weakness or something!
I have done rollers, originally I thought rollers were for drive-building (and found them boring) only, but reading your post I can't believe I didn't think of that, I'll resume practicing them.

I've also been purposely throwing them slow so she'd have time to catch them, but yeah, noticed her pogo-ing after them instead so I'll stop that. Thanks for the advice on the agility jump, now that I have more of a clear strategy in my head, I think I'll go back to practicing flatwork and get those skills locked down first!

Any advice on how to train a scoot? Things I've tried: freeshaping (failed miserably), pivoting around an object and wrap around my leg (also failed). Also, what is the purpose of a scoot? Under what circumstances do you use it? I get that it's a setup move... just isn't immediately obvious to me why we'd choose to use a scoot over an alternative setup move?

I had a LOT of trouble teaching a scoot. I did it via luring -- ie, lure dog to turn then start moving treat into its chest, try to maneuver it through your legs. It felt like it took forever before it clicked. I then started adding distance and requiring the dog to seek out the gap in my legs itself.

I imagine you could probably teach it relatively easily if your dog already knew how to back up in circles around you. Maybe try teaching that first, then work on the scoot behaviour.

I don't use mine in disc, but this is how I use it in daily life/in musical freestyle/my own amusement.

[YOUTUBE]eYvwG4Z4kxw[/YOUTUBE]

Hopefully someone who knows more than I will pop in with some actually helpful advice.

What an amusing vid xD Thanks for the tip, Sekah! I tried luring first but she'd do it in such a convoluted way (going around me, poking her head out from between my legs and then backing up) so I'll try teach her to backup in circles around me next.

Well it took me a while to find this, ha. Feist is now a week shy of seven months old. When did you guys start letting them catch out of the air vs rollers? I tried to throw some low ones for her just so she could practice timing it, and we're putting up the discs for a while. Suffice to say babydog can get a surprising amount of air on a very very low throw.

It was super nice out and david convinced me to take Talon to play some disc. So I did, and well..... we need practice! We tried doing a few tricks and I am so rusty! It went terribly but he made me laugh by traying to sping backwards around me, than through my legs forwards, than backwards, than all over the place lol.

Plus, this is kinda cute I think.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61917977@N02/13297355143/

Oh and you can probably tell in that video that our lovely day went from lovely to snowy. We got there and it just started pouring snow. I was lucky I use my thick coat for disc dog stuff because it hurts my back otherwise.

So...I registered Leo for a disc dog competition (just the throw and catch). It's being held in my home town in the beginning of April and it's free, so I figured, why not?

There are basically two options:
1) Leo will be focused and will actually do a decent job and catch a few or all
2) Leo will become completely distracted by the other dogs, not be interested in the frisbee, and completely embarrass me

Guess we won't know until it happens :rofl1: