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There
you are. Now you know to be careful, first learn to
throw yourself, and how it all begun.
But you’re still not playing dogfrisbee, and your
dog would love to do so much …
The easiest
way is to find a decent club with a good coach, but there
are not very many such clubs in Belgium.
Therefore, we hope that this website will get you started
in the right way.
Take into account that plays at competition level that you
might have seen playing, are probably training for several
years with their dogs to achieve such a level.
The first year you do not think about spectacular tricks,
but you slowly start building up your training.
For starters, you should buy dogfrisbees through a specialized
branch.
There are several webshops that offer good dogfrisbees at
reasonable prices.
You will find an overview of those shops on our links
page.
Your Frisbees should be soft enough that your dog cannot
hurt his teeth.
Dogs with a firm bite, might easily ruin a perfect Frisbee
is a couple of bites.
You should be very consistent to prohibit the dog to chew
on any kind of Frisbees.
For dogs with really firm bites, you can find specific dogfrisbees
like Jawz or Superhero that are more expensive
but last a lot longer.
However those discs are heavier and do not always fly in
exactly the same way as a normal disc does.
Therefore, not all competition formats allow those discs,
although most of them are about to change their minds in
favour of the heavier dogfrisbees.
Merken frisbee's :
will find four famous brands that distribute discs suitable
for dogfrisbee.
Click on the Frisbee for the manufacturer and explanations
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Dogstar |
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Wham-O |
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Hyperflite |
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Hero
disc |
Next thing
you should do, is to make sure that your dog loves to catch
the Frisbee and of course in the safest way possible.
If you can throw a decent backhand and your dog is at least
15 months of age then there is no problem.
You can start throwing a backhand about 5 meter before you
where the dog can catch the disc with a small low jump.
Is this backhand not yet perfect, you should find yourself
a sympathizer with whom you start practicing without dog.
Even if this backhands goes smoothly, you'd better find
someone to practice with, because you have to train a whole
lot of other different throws.
Playing Dogfrisbee
starts by teaching the command ‘around’ to your
dog, where your dog circles around you before he runs after
the Frisbee.
In this way, the dog will start from behind the disc and will
have a much better view on the flying object, which will give
him an advantage in judging his jump towards the disc.
So, the first exercise will be to lure the dog around you
and subsequently to let him bolt after the disc and catch
it in the air.
Make sure to show excitement in your voice when the dog properly
catches the disc in the air and lands safely.
This is a very nice exercise to start
with.
If throwing
a safe backhand is still to difficult, or if your dog is
too young to jump, you might do the same exercise with a
roller (see section Grips and Throws), where the discs rolls
over the ground.
Especially with dogs younger then 15 months, this is the
only throw that you may use, since the skeleton of a young
dog does not allow any forced jumping at all.
OK, it does not really hurt your puppy of 11 months to make
a small jump once in a while, and yes he does this already
on his own by jumping off the couch. But are you 100%
sure that the Frisbee will need only a ‘small’
jump to be catched and are you 100% sure that your puppy
will land safely while looking to the flying Frisbee ?
A flying disc is so unpredictable that you should NEVER
take any kind of risks with your young dog, and NEVER let
him catch a Frisbee on the wing.
This position is unfortunately flatly opposed to the rules
of some dogfrisbee authorities, but remains very well considered
and posted after a thorough evaluation by veterinarians
and canine specialists.
If you consider a dogfrisbee career, make sure that your
pup loves frolicking after rollers, is very well under control
and that he gets a good co-ordination and jumping trainings
base.
Those 15 months you can use as a handler to become a master
in Frisbee throwing !
Another important
advise is to use always more then one Frisbee with your
dog from the beginning.
If you would start with only one disc in your hand, it will
become quickly an fetching game and the dog will claim HIS
one disc, without any interest in a second disc.
Make a habit from the beginning, to let the dog retrieve
the disc, but then always throw away another disc.
Here you may also start training that the dog only gets
his next Frisbee, when he brought the disc in a straight
line and without chewing back to you.
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