All Things Dog Blog

Part IV in a Series of V

by Chris Engel

Team-Bandit

(c) photo copyright Kristie Moser

Kota Demonstrates his Talent

Welcome back to Frisbee Dog 101. This is Part IV in my series of V. If you have missed the first 3, you might want to go back and catch up at these links:

Part I

Part II

Part III

From here training becomes much more specialized, depending on your dog. If your dog has no interest whatsoever, or does not know what a Frisbee is, try this. Start with a Frisbee upside down on the ground and move it back and forth in an effort to get your dog to chase it. If he does chase, then by all means let him catch it and praise him when he does. Continue this until you feel comfortable your dog knows his job is to go after the disc when it comes out. He must also learn to release it when asked. I use the command "drop it" with both of my dogs.

Bandit used to want to keep the disc and play tug-of-war, which I refused to do, especially if I asked him to drop. I would turn my back and wait for him to drop. Once he did drop, I would praise him profusely; then we would resume play. Every once in a while he tests my resolve and refuses to relinquish the disc; however, once I show him my back, it's aways at my feet in just a matter of seconds.

Kota, on the other hand, didn't care if I turned my back. She would simply walk around front. We went in circles for about a week till I figured out all I had to do was show her another disc and she would drop the one she had in a second. I adopted a method of saying drop then producing a second disc, which got her to drop, and then I would praise with food. After about 2 days she was dropping anything and everything from as far away as she could hear!

Next step for me was short tosses, first just a foot or two. When Bandit caught it I went berserk ! It kinda freaked him out, so I scaled back my animation and within a week he was catching 50% of the throws I was putting up in the air .... till he hit a telephone pole and I felt TERRIBLE (although it didn't seem to phase him one bit).

This was when I learned I had to really pick and choose where I throw. I also needed to have complete control over my discs and know where they were going to go when they left my hand. Remember, not every throw has to be a touchdown. You can make a LOT more points in a competition if you are consistent, rather than connecting on a few big throws.

Be sure to watch for part V of my series, when I will help you out with choosing Frisbees. Even if you’re just in this for some backyard fun, you need a Frisbee that is safe and works well for your dog. It’s not as simple as a trip to Petsmart, but I’ll give you all the tricks of the trade. Hope to see you then.