Disk Dog

A few weeks back I saw that “Tails U Win” dog training facility was offering a class called “Disk Dog 1”. My thought was that since Olive loves to chase her foam rubber saucer and is quite good at catching it, even jumping to catch it in mid-air, this would be a fun class for her that she would be a natural at.

The class turned out to be a bit more complex than I had expected. “Disk Dog” is a competitive sport similar to agility competitions for dogs. At the first class we were given the homework of teaching our dogs to grab the saucer, bring it back to us, give the saucer a tug as we held it, run around behind us, and go out as we set up for the next toss. I thought it would take me forever to teach Olive all that.

As it turned out, however, Olive caught right onto the commands “behind me” and “tug of war”. She is catching on to my command to bring the saucer to me a bit more slowly; she gets that she needs to bring it somewhat closer to me and drop it, but I want her to actually bring it to my hands. The instructor has commented that Olive catches on fast and is a pleasure for him to work with.

At a recent class my sister came by to observe and took a few shots with her cellphone:

 

"OK, I give it a tug as you asked"

 


"So this is where he tossed it"

"He's calling for me to bring it back to him. I guess I can take it somewhere in his direction."

"What, he wants me to bring it all the way back to him? Pretty demanding, isn't he?"

"Oh, alright."

"Here it is. Are you happy now?"

 At today’s class we alternated saucers and where they were thrown. Olive’s problem was that she got focused on the first saucer I threw, then ignored the next one. The remedy is to get her attention with the second saucer until her focus is on that one. She started to catch on that we were playing with more than one saucer, though a bit of practice to solidify the concept will be needed.

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Some let me know that they had difficulty getting the video of Olive chasing a tennis ball to play. If you get this directly through email, it may be that your server disables such files. I might suggest that you try going directly to Olive’s blogsite with the link:

http://olivetbordercollie.blogspot.com/

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An advanced disk dog class is being offered right after the current class ends. I am inclined to enroll in this one as well, though I was not particularly interested in competing. Classes will be held on Saturdays; the schedule will be difficult during December. I am hoping they will consider delaying the start until January. More on that in the future.