Sport

We were introduced into the world of dogfrisbee by Darek Radomski, Mariusz and Justyna from Discbusters!. Una loved the flying disc at the first sight, though at first she thought that her job was to catch it and to kill it. Nevertheless, I was soon able to persuade her it’s better to bring the disc back to me and since then we have no problems with that...

Una learns the frisbee tricks really fast and her main problem is, well, me. Decent throwing seems above my abilities (to be honest, I just lack the time and enthusiasm to learn how to throw properly), so she just chases the rollers with great enthusiasm, catches short throws and some simple overs. Nothing really stunning, but we have fun :)

You can see some of it in the videos section.

1. Do you have any kind of warm-up routine before you start throwing the frisbee?
2. Do you limit your training time or the number of throws?

I decided to answer here :)

Warm-up

Actually, this innocent, fun disc throwing makes the dog to do funny things with its body, which it wouldn’t normally do. Therefore, it’s absolutely necessary to prepare your dog for this physical challenges before we start.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find any materials on warming-up for dogs, anyway, I didn’t find anything intelligible. Therefore, I just try to use my common-sense. Every frisbee session is preceded by a few minute walk (partly on leash – walking and trotting, and partly without leash – cantering) – that’s what it takes to get to the place which is appropriate for this kind of exercise. Then, I take the disc out and start with quite a long weaving between my legs, which allows the dog to stretch, finished with a long, straight roller – Una really initiates her turbo drive to get it :) Sometimes this is the end of our warm-up, sometimes a just add another roller, and then start practice some throws, overs etc.

Training duration

How long the training is depends on the dog. Actually, it never ceases to amaze me that I can throw Una a ball for an hour and her enthusiasm is undiminished, whereas with frisbee it totally different. Frisbee actually tires and exhaust the dog much, much, quicker.

The important thing is to finish the training when the dog is still enthusiastic. Better to finish too soon than too late. You have to figure that out for yourself, as you have to know your dog in order to know when to put the discs away. Generally speaking, the trainig should be really really short, few minutes at most. But I’ve never timed it, I just looked at the dog :)