Tips For Play-Time ....?

Question

My Dobe is a year and a couple months. Im trying to get her intrested in sporting like Frisbee. Does anyone have any suggestions? She rarely catches it and becomes disintrested within a few minutes with idea.She just watches it fly by then waits for it to hit the ground . She would rather chase around a basket ball or some other simple game all day. Any tips to make her keep focas? Or can dogs be like people and just flat out not like a sport like we do?

Answer 1

Never let her have the frisbee in her mouth if she does not catch it. That is how I trained my dog to catch balls and frisbees. You will need to move around a lot to get the frisbee, but it is worth it. Make sure you have taught your dog what "catch" means, though. Practice with throwing a tennis ball to her first at a close distance, but do not let her have the ball until she catches it. Then switch to Frisbee. Also, try playing Frisbee with someone else and throw it back and forth with your dog in the middle, like pickle in the middle. She may try to catch it midair as it goes from one of you to the other. If she does, praise her and let her hold onto the Frisbee in her mouth for a while. Frisbee with dogs is awesome so keep trying and be patient! You cannot expect her to get it right away.

EDIT: If you truly want her to do it, she will. Dogs will like anything if you show them how to do it correctly and in a positive way. If a dog does not like something, it means they were not introduced to it in the proper way.

Answer 2

1. Dogs have differing levels of drive. This means that some will run through a wall to get what they want (or what they've been instructed to get). You can see this with some dogs in agility, flyball or just chasing a flying disk.

2. Dogs also have different types of motivators. Some like to chew, some like to tug, some like to chase.

3. I don't think it's a focus issue. It may sound silly but...your dog has probably never been taught to go after a frisbee and retrieve it. Now it's possible your dog may never be great at it. But you can absolutely train her to catch and retrieve a frisbee.

4. What you want to try is clicker training. It is what all animal trainers (most dog agility competitors, the dolphin trainers at Sea World, folks are using it with cats and horses now) use to train a number of things--especially tricks. And that's basically what you're doing. You think of it as a sport. But for right now, you need to think of it as a trick. For instance, you can give me a box and once a dog is clicker savvy (ie: knows that the click means "you done good and you get a reward"), within 20 minutes I can get that dog to stand in the box, or turn it upside down, or put it on her head. The principles of that activity are the same as teaching a dog to fetch a frisbee.

So...how do you train a trick?
--make it fun.
--break it down into several steps.
--reward (and make it clear to the dog what the good thing was that she did--that is where the clicker comes in handy).
--always end on a high note (like a success).
Do that, and you'll not only get a dog who catches a frisbee, you'll get a better relationship with your dog. She'll see you as the source of her fun and you'll end up doing a bunch of tricks with her.

Answer 3

Some dogs just aren't keen on frisbee catching.. I think it's pretty hard on the mouth/teeth trying to catch a frisbee.. Some dogs don't have much prey drive and won't go after things that are moving, or they need it ' kept alive ' in order to keep the interest up. If she is chasing it but stops once the frisbee is on the ground, she hasn't much prey drive.. The only way to keep her interest is to attach a line to the frisbee and keep it moving to keep her interest. I would just find something else she lines to chase or play with.

Answer 4

Yes it is possible that it is just not the sport for her. Try different things, agility is another good sport for dogs even dobe's. Good luck and have fun!

Answer 5

If they don't like something then they won't do it.