Hey, again-

I was wondering how you can teach or encourage a pup to catch a ball or frisbee, etc while playing w/him? Once in a while, Kodee will catch his ball in his mouth (usually after it bounces one or two times), and today was the first day we played w/his flying squirrel thingie. He LOVES it, but doesn't seem to know how to catch. I thought it might be easier to start w/the squirrel, since it stays airborne longer, but I have no idea how to begin. If I mark it when he catches the ball by accident, will this work if I give him the treat a few seconds later? (obviously he's not right next to me if he's catching a ball). He's hasn't ever caught the squirrel yet (only had one playing session w/that so far), so how would I go about teaching him for that, if he doesn't catch it in the first place (i.e. I can't mark a behavior that he doesn't seem to know how to do yet. Am I making sense?)

I know he's young, and I'm don't want to push him, but I thought this would be a fun thing to add to our playtime....

Yikes - the one time I don't preview, I have a dozen typos....sorry!!!

I just built my dog's prey drive by tying my flying squirrel's paw to a light rope and make the dog chase it. Start off by keping the sessions short and soon enough Kodee will just want want and want and that squirrel.

Pretty well anything you can make him chase (balls etc) will bring out that drive. I like the idea of keeping it on a rope as then you control the game. I've seen jute tugs on the end of a whip like device that would be perfect to play games like that.

Heya Kori,

First you have to make sure that the dog has super drive for whatever you want him to catch - sounds like you have that part down

Second, puppies can be pretty lousy with their mouth-eye coordination until they get some practice.

How about if you tried back-tying him and attached the squirrel thing to the end of a whip. That way you could have it fly back and forth right in front of his face and the only way for him to get it would be to grab it in mid-air.

Try to make it as easy as possible for him (I think that catching a flying frisbee is expecting a lot from a young pup, especially a clumsy one, lol). If you can get him REALLY excited and snapping at the frisbee when it goes past his face, he'll probably catch on pretty quickly.

Also that way he only has to worry about snapping his jaws at the right time. Running after a moving object, jumping at it AND snapping his jaws at the right time seems like more than his little untrained brain can handle at the moment

The more you practice this, the better his coordination will get. Have fun!


Edit: Geoff beat me to it by 34 seconds...

I don't know that you need to "teach" it.

I play with a soft ball and a soft fribee with Starbuck. After just a couple sessions she was "trying" to catch the items. It took her weeks before she was any good.

Make sure you use something soft that won't hurt his head or teeth when he misses. The Flying SQ should be fine, but mine does not "fly" very well. It tends to pitch over and crash into the ground.

Our best frisbee so far was one that I picked up at Target for about $2. I found one on the internet that looks the same:

http://www.dogtoys.com/flyingcalftoy.html

It was made of nylon and it flew in a very stable arc. I could throw it down the side yard and it would go over 50 feet in a straight line. Starbuck got to the point where she could catch it 90% of the time.

For a ball I use one of those small "Squeeky" balls. Look at the Good Cuz/Bad Cuz Balls on this site. They make a ball just like that with no feet.

Good Luck

Hi ya. May sound stupid, but I taught every one of my dogs to catch with pop corn!!!!! Yes, pop corn. They took on VERY fast. It's quite easy for them to catch because pop corn is light and doesn't move as fast as most things that you throw up for your dog. And they don't get hurt by it when the miss!!!! Trust me, it works!

This is what I have done to get dogs to go for it out of they air rather than chase it down after it has landed:

Pump the dog up for it a bit, by teasing them with it, but not lettting them get it. Then I hold it up a bit, give the 'hup' and let the dog jump and take it out of my hand. Lots of clapping, move backwards praising, clapping and encourage the dog to bring it to you.

Progress to just kind of tossing the frisbee (or other item) up in the air slightly just in front of you so they can catch it. Once they will catch it from pretty much stationary out of the air you can progress to some light, soft throws that are easy to catch out of the air.

Make the game progressivly harder and the big praise happens when caught out of the air. Give the dog good throws at first, and then they will always want to get it out of the air not on the ground and will drive to do so.

I am no frisbee expert. Some dogs love it more than others. You need to talk to Anne Vaini. I think she is still on this list. She has some disc dogs and some great training ideas. I think she is also the one to talk to about marking for teaching this behavior

I only skimmed the thread but maybe it has already been mentioned not to do too much crazy jumping with a puppy.

In the house, we played with a ball that bounced. He tried to go after it. Outside, if the ball bounced, he would try to catch it in the air. We played enough on hard floors (linoleum, great entertainment value)and with balls that bounced that he got good at it. We waited until he was 19 months old before we added the frisbee, mainly because it took us that long to think of it. But I'm glad we did, because he jumps for it, and I had been warned that you don't want a young dog doing too much jumping.

My son and I started out with two frisbees, playing keep away. If we could catch the frisbee, we would, but if it looked like there was any chance Hans would get it first, we let him have it, because he was totally focused on the frisbee and we didn't think he'd stop to consider there was a hand on it when he chomped down. I have a very vivid memory of my son throwing a frisbee to me that was going to pass me to my left at head height. I'm right handed, so I turned to my left, 180 degrees and reached out and grabbed the frisbee out of the air, and pulled it in towards me. Just then, Hans passed me, with his mouth open at the height of my head.

Throwing it right at him doesn't work too well. He likes to chase it down and catch it. So we throw it, and he takes off after it and as soon as he judges he can catch it, he either extends his neck forward (if it's low enough) or jumps up if it isn't.

I'd say I didn't so much teach him to catch the frisbee, as he wanted to catch it himself. And note, he was 18 months old before we even tried it with him. Before that, if the ball bounced, he'd try to catch it, and it did take him awhile to get down the mouth-eye coordination thing. But once he did, we were simply amazed at how good an athlete he is. Well, at how much better an athlete he is than we are

In the picture below he caught up to the frisbee from behind and leaped for it as it was beginning to slide off to the side on the way down.

http://home.comcast.net/~rrpallechio/Hans/Catching_Frisbee.JPG

Awesome pic Rich!!!

And I agree with you, it's utterly futile to compete for athleticism points against an 18-month-old dog. They'd put us all to shame... )

Once they get a few months of practice into their coordination they are indeed amazing. My 18-month male (the one in my sig) can catch the ball 6+ feet in the air from a twisting/spinning leap. Of course as a 6-month-old he couldn't catch food dropped from my mouth - what can I say, their little brains grow

Yuko, if it wasn't for digital cameras, I couldn't afford to have that picture. My son took the camera and I threw the frisbee, and threw the frisbe, and threw the frisbee, to get that one picture worth keeping. I'd go broke on film trying to get that picture the old fashioned way. And then we realized we should have set the camera for a faster shutter speed.

We won't talk about working on "drop it" so he doesn't carry the frisbee into his "potty" area and drop it while he's sniffing around