Starter Flyball Boxes - DON'T USE THEM

A lot of times, when people start flyball, they are very excited to get their dog to take the ball out of the box. This causes them to start looking at things like this: Starter Flyball Box Just my opinion, of course, but I believe these are a complete waste of money - or worse, actually damaging to your training regimen.

The big bugaboo, the most important, firstest thing you want to teach your flyball dog is the swimmer's turn off the box. Little "starter" boxes like these teach the dog to slap the box with his front feet and the wonderfull tennis ball flies out. Now, if he is as ball crazy as 99% of flyball dogs, the blasted tennis ball is the one sole meaning to his life and obtaining it and getting it flying again is the be-all end-all of his existence. So, training effectively stops dead when that hypnotic sphere goes flying and you end up with a dog with a bad habit like my Spoiled One, of slamming the box with his front feet instead of doing a swimmers turn. He was the first dog I trained for flyball, and I am working and working with him, but I have not been able to train him out of this.

Especially if your dog is ball crazy, it's better to teach them the swimmer's turn off the box before you introduce any fuzzy green distractions. Trust me, they usually figure out what to do when the ball comes flying out at them as they bound off the box. But, if they don't have that swimmer's turn already set in their muscle memory, ingrained in their doggy soul, it probably isn't going to happen if there are tennis balls flying about. Here is more information on techniques for training a swimmer's turn.

http://www.cafepress.com/weaselpuppy