Making Flyball Safe: Jumps

Part Two of Making Flyball Safe (see Part One: Box Turns)

I often hear people mention that flyball is not a safe sport. Generally, these are people who are involved in other dog sports such as agility, disc, obedience, or freestyle. They are experienced dog people. They simply haven't been exposed to flyball in a proper way.

The flyball box is not the only component out on the flyball lanes, of course. When you ask a dog to run at top speed over hurdles, there are risks involved. The most important thing is to minimize those risks as much as is possible.

It is not unheard of for a dog to hit the jump with their feet or legs while navigating the course. It is our job as trainers and handlers to train the dogs to not hit the jumps, give them the skills to navigate properly, and minimize the risks for if they do hit a jump.

Flyball jumps, unlike those used in agility, are solid. A flyball jump is a 6 inch tall, two foot wide base board and two uprights on either side of it. The most common material for the jump to be made of is plywood, but more and more jumps are being made out of Sintra, a rigid foam board material. Sintra is softer than plywood, making it safer in case of collision between dog and jump. To adjust the height of the jumps, slats are added on top of the 6 inch base board. Slats can be 6, 4, 3, 2, or 1 inches wide, and any combination of them can be used to reach the appropriate height. However, a one inch slat is required to be on top. The one inch slat is the easiest to break due to how thin it is. Slats are made out of either very thin plywood or else, more desirably, Sintra.

Ideally, if a dog knocks a jump slightly, the bump won't be enough to cause injury. If the bump is harder, it will hopefully break the slat, giving way to prevent injury to the dog (Sintra does not become sharp when broken). In practice, to further minimize risk of injury, we put cut pieces of either foam pipe insulation or slit pool noodles over the top of the jumps. This greatly reduces the chance that a glancing blow of the paws on the top of the jump will cause any injury.

The equipment, however, is only part of the equation. Training is the other part. We spend time every practice having the dogs navigate over the jumps. Since the jumps are always ten feet apart and fifteen feet from the box, the dogs easily can learn an automatic pattern on how to jump safely. Various methods can be used to help dogs adjust their striding to additionally minimize risks of hitting the jumps. For example, dogs who launch early for the first jump can be at risk of hitting the jumps as they make themselves stretch and reach in midair to clear the jumps. Stride regulators can help train these dogs to make that first launch closer to the jump, so that the apex of their stride is directly over the jump.

Occasionally, it is helpful to teach the dogs about what to do if the jumps are NOT exactly 10 feet apart, or not straight, or are different heights. Mistakes can happen, another dog can knock a jump askew, and it is important to teach the dogs to deal with this. We don't do it often, as we want them to pattern to the jumps at regulation distance, but it can be very helpful to run jump drills with things askew occasionally.

Knocking the jumps over completely, making them a little crooked, setting them to different heights, all of these are ways to help teach a dog to deal with these same issues if they happen during a real race. I always start with a single jump and carefully encourage the dog to jump over it safely, be it askew, a strange height, or completely over on its side. Once the dog is comfortable with jumping the not-right obstacle, I will add in another jump. The goal isn't to train the dog to jump strange configurations of the jumps, and I would actually prefer, if the jump is extremely off during a competition, that I either not run my dog or, if it is too late, that my dog skip the jump. But I think that my dog is much safer on the course if introduced to irregularities in safe, controlled settings.

Making Flyball Safe: Box Turns

Part One of Making Flyball Safe

I often hear people mention that flyball is not a safe sport. Generally, these are people who are involved in other dog sports such as agility, disc, obedience, or freestyle. They are experienced dog people. They simply haven't been exposed to flyball in a proper way.

Years ago, flyball was a sport that risked some pretty significant injury, especially from repetitive stress. Before the modern flyball box was created, dogs were trained to run fast down the lane, slam into a pedal with one or both front feet, coming to a complete stop, catch the ball as it launched, then pivot and run back to their handler. Both the abrupt stop and the hard pivot were likely to (and did) cause injuries, both acute and, more often, chronic. Arthritis in the front shoulders was common in older flyball dogs. 

Flyball, however, has come a long way since then, in both equipment and training. Flyball boxes now have holes positioned to either side, instead of in the center. The front pedal is a padded surface large enough for all four feet to land on, instead of just one or two feet. Thrusters launch the ball more efficiently and predictably. We now spend months training dogs to use all four feet to create a smooth "swimmers turn" on the box, eliminating the abrupt stop and slamming of the front feet, legs, and shoulders and also the stress on the back and rear from the following pivot. The swimmers turn allows dogs to safely retrieve the ball from the box more quickly and with less stress on their bodies. 

Those who have followed my blog for a while will know that I have been spending, quite literally, years training Koira to have a proper box turn. This isn't out of some desire to have a super fast dog, or win races, or set records. I want her to have a good turn so that she is able to play flyball safely and with the minimum amount of stress possible on her body. Some dogs who run slower and self-regulate how hard they hit the box may be able to run flyball for years with a poor turn without any injuries. Koira, in my opinion, runs too hard and too fast, and has too little self preservation instinct, to be allowed to do any sub-standard turns without a risk of injury. (As a note, normally it should not take this long to train a safe turn. Unfortunately, I trained Koira with a poor turn before I knew any better, and have since spent years trying to correct it.)

I would compare training a proper box turn in flyball to training good contacts in agility. It can be hard. Some dogs take to it super fast, others take forever to learn it, and some need constant reminders about how to do it right. If you don't bother to train contacts, your dog may never hurt themselves, but the risk is much higher that they will launch themselves off of a piece of equipment early and become injured. There are many different strategies for training contacts. Some work better for some dogs and less well for others. But it is important to spend the time and effort to train it properly. 

All of these things are true in flyball as well, except that in flyball, the dog and the team are not penalized for a poor turn (while a missed contact in agility is penalized). This means that the handler has the burden of doing the right thing in training to keep their dog safe. They have to spend the time and effort in training, not to succeed in the sport (though dogs with good turns have much faster times) but to keep their dog safe and healthy. Sometimes, this means training a "good enough" turn that the dog will consistently perform without a high risk of injury, but without spending years to train the "perfect" turn. A "good enough" turn depends a lot on the dog. (Some dogs can perform a three-footed turn safely for years without a significant risk of injury. Other dogs may do a three footed turn in a way that increases risk of injury.) 

I urge those of you who hear (or especially those of you who say) that flyball is not safe to spend some time checking out what goes into making this sport as safe as possible for the dogs who play it. Is there a risk of injury? Of course. Every time you let your dog play fetch, go swimming, or play any sport, there is a risk. The goal in all fun activities should be to minimize that risk as much as possible. I believe that is what good flyball trainers and teams do.

Wordless Wednesday: Sunset