by Ilona Van Galen

Created on: April 28, 2009

What do you do with up to 400 excited dogs in a public place, desperate to compete in their favourite sport? You crate them, of course. It's impossible to consider an outdoor Australian Flyball competition without the team marquees, dogs waiting happily in crate, beside canvas- chaired owners sipping coffee and discussing team tactics.

Flyball is a team sport for dogs of any breed or breeding, a relay race between two teams of four dogs. Each dog must run a 51 foot course over four hurdles to a spring loaded box that releases a tennis ball which the dog then brings back to its owner, jumping all four hurdles again on the return run. It's a fast and fascinating sport - the world record time for four dogs is 15.22 seconds - and Flyball dogs really, really, really love to race. The thought of trying to manage a fit, strong, Flyball dog's enthusiasm between races without that essential crate is too exhausting to contemplate.

If they're not already crate trained, beginner Flyball dogs are introduced to the crate while they learn the essential components of the sport. Like most dog training, it's easier to coax a younger dog into a new behaviour than to persuade an older dog that something new is worth trying without suspicion. But I've yet to see a dog who can't eventually be encouraged to try out the crate for an appropriate reward. Food treats, a toy, lavish praise, whatever it takes to allow the dog to investigate the crate in the first place. Once a dog learns that the crate is a temporary location rather than a prison, that same crate starts to become a temporary location that the dog will willingly enter on its own.

Personally, I own a rescue dog who had been so badly mistreated before she came to me that she was frightened of almost everything: toys, balls, men, men in hats, shiny objects, doorways, food bowls, going out, coming back. We started Flyball as a way to exercise her clever little puppy mind whilst socializing her in an environment where she was exposed to many scary things that did not harm her. For her, the crate was one of the worst of those scary things.She wanted to spend time on my lap rather than time in a crate, and I had to suppress a whole range of personal misgivings about crating because I could see that we wouldn't be able to fully participate in Flyball unless she was crated in between training exercises and races.

I worked and worked on rewarding her for going into her house', virtually one paw at a time.I worked on the idea that her

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>