Lexi plays at flyball

[corbinam]

It sounds like she just doesn't find it rewarding enough, based on her doing it for a short time and then losing interest.
It may help to shorten your training sessions and quit while you are ahead. It may help to spend more time building more interest in interacting with the box.

You know, I thought about that the first time, so the second night I made sure to watch her and she was really engaged and "trying"...just too worried to touch the box. So she would run up to the box, and do her turn in front of the box. She still ran towards it excitedly, barking, trying to get it right, but just avoiding touching the box.

I guess I should just take a step back and work more of the turns-start using some of the props that Chelle suggested. That way maybe when I take the props to the building it will translate a bit better.

 

[Lovely]

You could be over practicing. Alternate building drive for the ball and box work. I think that Duncan finally got over his box issues because he wanted the ball SO badly, he was going to deal with the evil clicky sounds just to get to it.

 

[Caro]

Can you get to a training session with the competition dogs? Most dogs go through this stage of fearing the sound of the box - esp sound senstive dogs. When they hit this stage we encourage handlers to sit in on team training and sit with their dog near the box so the dog can see what happens when the box makes the noise in an environment where the dogs running are excited about the box.

 

[corbinam]

Can you get to a training session with the competition dogs? Most dogs go through this stage of fearing the sound of the box - esp sound senstive dogs. When they hit this stage we encourage handlers to sit in on team training and sit with their dog near the box so the dog can see what happens when the box makes the noise in an environment where the dogs running are excited about the box.

She's been doing that...the weird thing is she makes no fear response at all when the box is triggered--whether it's her triggering it, me triggering it, or it being triggered by another dog in the room.

She will excitedly get her treat, etc...

It's just all of a sudden she decides she doesn't want to touch it and even though it didn't eat her the first 20 times it was triggered, it is going to eat her this time.

 

[Justicemom]

Those look great! I love the switch. Sca was always a lefty and from what I have heard it is rare for a dog not to swap sides a time or so as they are getting started.

Justice is a lefty too. Obviously he doesn't do flyball but he was so much a lefty that the broadjump turn in obedience was really hard for him. It took over 4 months to get a good tight turn and Justice is a dog that never took more than 2 weeks to learn something. Heck I taught that dog Utility in 2 months.

In agility, he couldn't turn to his right very well either. I always got a spin on a rear cross going to the right. After years of practice he is now pretty good at going both ways but wow was it hard at first.

I find it interesting that dogs are also right and left pawed. Ember is right pawed and Diva is also right pawed but both can go left natural pretty well.

 

[Sharon7]

Gosh Ashley, Arden and I watched your video and were impressed with Lexi! She seems like she is picking it up pretty quickly, even with some quirks here and there. My girls would NEVER hit the box - the noise would freak them out. They don't even like watching flyball from nearby! And our club's flyball team drooled over Ally's size and speed, but... no interest on her part!

 

[SheepOfBlue]

She's been doing that...the weird thing is she makes no fear response at all when the box is triggered--whether it's her triggering it, me triggering it, or it being triggered by another dog in the room.

She will excitedly get her treat, etc...

It's just all of a sudden she decides she doesn't want to touch it and even though it didn't eat her the first 20 times it was triggered, it is going to eat her this time.

Give her a break. Interestingly some of Sca's biggest breakthroughs came after off weeks. Not sure that is typical but it has been consistent with him.

 

[Lovely]

Give her a break. Interestingly some of Sca's biggest breakthroughs came after off weeks. Not sure that is typical but it has been consistent with him.

Same here! We also made our greatest leaps after taking a break for a week or two. It takes time. Her refusal might be that she is nervous, just not showing it in ways you recognize. Flyball does make you very in tune with your dog's boundaries. My advice is to stop well before her refusal point. At our practices, we only run a dog about 5-8 times and then move on to the next dogs. Every dog gets at least 2 sessions. Racers usually get 2 and green dogs may get 3. The last is just something fun, though, like restrained recalls. That helps pattern the jumps.

 

[SheepOfBlue]

Any Lexi updates or did y'all give up

 

[corbinam]

Any Lexi updates or did y'all give up

Haha no--our classes finished and the flyball class was scheduled at a time we couldn't make it

But, we did go out the other day to do some work. I had been a little lax practicing with Lexi, but she remembered the turn on the box.

I'm still struggling to get her to put everything together. She can do the turn on the box, she can get the ball off the chute, she runs down and back by herself...but she can't put it together.

So if the ball is on the box, she doesn't do the turn (she just puts 2 feet on tentatively and grabs it).

And she can trigger the box about 5-10 times (no ball on--I throw the ball for her and she gets very excited), and then she decides that the box is a scary monster that will eat her, and she won't touch it until I get treats out and start back at asking her to just turn (no trigger). It must be the motion that scares her (eventually) because even when she is avoiding touch the box, I can trigger it myself and throw the ball and she gets SO excited and grabs the ball immediately.

Go figure. I'm going to try to talk the instructor into moving classes to a night when we can make it (there are a only a few people in the class--mostly the people we've been practicing with) so we can sign up in the spring session.