FitDog Friday: Flyball box turns and striding

Here is a striding video of Koira this week. She is still moving pretty smoothly.



And then here is a box turn video from this week. We were losing the light, so the video is a bit dark. But, her turn is very nice, tight, and fast. We used a simple PVC prop in front of the box for it. You can see another PVC prop closer to the camera- that is one of our striding props, and is 5 feet from the box. We were starting from just behind that prop.

FitDog Friday: Flyball Striding

Last Friday, I linked to a post about training striding in flyball. This week, I thought I would share a video of Koira running at practice. The video shows her from the fourth jump, to the box, on the box, then back to the jump again. You can see that she takes three strides between the jump and the box, and then three strides again from the box to the jump.

Her box turn is very sloppy. She is double hitting (repositioning her feet on the box before pushing off). I think her box turn is never going to be something to be proud of. But I seriously love this dog. She has taught me so much, and been so patient with all of my mistakes. Because of her, I will be a much better trainer when I get my next flyball dog.

FitDog Friday

I honestly have no pictures to post today, and no awesome fitness information to share. However, one of my favorite flyball training blogs put up a new post about jumping in relation to flyball. I thought it was an enjoyable read, and very informative.

SPECTRUM DOGS: Jumping for Flyball

I agree with her point about using gates for teaching jumping in flyball. I've always thought it was a rather cop-out method. Yes, it works with some dogs. But it shouldn't be necessary if you properly train the jumping, either the way she describes it or by doing a simple back chaining.

I'm also super interested in trying out some of the jump grids she talks about. I've never liked using extra props to get dogs to do things. Adding props means you have to then wean off of props. This is true for box jumps, stride bumps, etc. The more things you add, the more things you have to wean away from. So, if using jumping grids can help with teaching proper striding, it would be one more step to not having to use, or to minimizing the use of, stride bumps, while still ending up with proper striding.

I wish I had more indoor space to practice. My house is too small to do much- even doing basic up close box work requires moving stuff to get enough room. I'll just have to take advantage of dry days as much as possible I guess!