Information for Beginning Flyball Students

22 Apr 2007Steve Schwarz

Updated 05-Mar-2011

I’ll use this post as a place to put information for handlers starting my Flyball classes. I’ll update it if I add more information or find other online resources.

Please take a few moments to read the following articles:

Hyper Flight Flyball Club has a good description of Flyball with pictures
Please take a look at my Flyball Training Progression to see the training steps we'll be following. I'll give a quick demo of the progression usually during the first class.
Here is a discussion of what I try to cover in the first class. This post also provides some homework you can start on.
You'll need to find a motivating reward for your dog for use in training and competition. One approach is to teach your dog to tug. Here's my article on how to tug safely with your dog.
Susan Garrett has a great article: How to Create a Motivating Toy that you can follow to develop interest in tugging, toys or tennis balls. Lisa B also has adetailed post on other methods for teaching toy/ball/tug interest that you might read also - I'm not that crazy about restricting access to toys to only when you are around but it really depends on what kind of a relationship you've developed so far with your dog.
A great site for flyball information is flyball.com
You might want to subscribe to the flyball email list
The North American Flyball Association is at NAFA
The newer United Flyball League is at UFLI. They also have an email list to which you can subscribe on their home page
Here is a good article on some considerations when picking a team/club
Lisa B at Dog-li-ness brought this good article about dogs being ready to race to my attention. Some of this might not make sense if you are just starting, but we will practice two lane drills as part of our training.

Videos

I like to show these videos (or indicated time ranges) to demonstrate various aspects of the game/training. Best to watch these full screen!

Good Visual Overview

Methods for Holding Dogs

At beginning of video

Fast Racing, Handler Motion and Slow Motion of Close Passes

Don’t hesitate to email me or bring your questions to class so we can all discuss them.

If you enjoyed this article won't you please: Thanks!