[Loretta]

I had never heard of it so I looked it up on YouTube. It looks so fun! I hope you enjoy it and let us know how it goes for you.

[Beth]

Thanks! I will definitely give an update or two. It looks like it will be fun and good for bonding.

[Beth]

We started our first video lesson yesterday. It is going to take a while to teach and progress the behaviours and then layer them into the final game, but it is going to be great for our exercising his brain, strengthening our bond and so much fun when it all comes together.

[Colin]

We did it in our local dog club (Advanced class) last year, just to learn as an exercise not to do it as a sport. It was great fun and a lot of the dogs really got it. My dog didn’t, but that was my fault. He had such a high drive for the ball that getting to chase the ball became a reward for him and I didn’t want to cap his drive. So now I use the gym ball in our pool as his ultimate reward that he gets after a training session. He’ll swim for an hour chasing it. Costs me a fortune in gym balls though, he tries to kill them.

[Beth]

I don’t know if we will end up doing it as a sport either, but I just want him to use his herding instincts. Ours is pretty good at not destroying things so far, but we will see. I taught him to “touch” on command. He touches whatever I tell him to with his nose and doesn’t use his teeth on it. Fingers crossed that his prey drive doesn’t go too far. Robert did a video about touch, but I forget what he called it. He and Goofy were doing it and he said that it is the beginning stages of teaching your dog to push light switches for service dogs.

[Pam]

Check out a book called ‘Get The Ball Rolling’. It’s really good to get a step by step going. There isn’t anyone in my area (Houston) doing this so we play on our own.

[Michelle]

I have that book too. It really breaks it down nicely and four out of my five dogs are learning. There isn’t anyone in my area doing it either so I thought I would learn and then give lessons at my training center.

[Beth]

That sounds like a great idea!

[Beth]

Thanks! I will check out the book. Right now we are signed up for video lessons with a trainer that teaches it and we message back and forth on Facebook with her as we go through the video lesson. I welcome any and all input though. You never know when someone might say something or have a method that works better for us. The trainer we are using is about 3 hours away from us and I haven’t heard of any groups closer to us than that. We will be doing it alone for a while I imagine. Have you been able to develop any other people in your region to create a group? Do you still enjoy it without the group? How long did it take you to develop the skills?

[Michelle]

If you go to nationaltreibball.com they have some free resources on their page. There’s lots of YouTube video links that show different parts of the training process. I’ve found it very helpful.

[Beth]

Thanks for the tip!

[KatMac]

If you have Amazon Prime, the show “the Pack” hosted by Lindsey Vonn features a Treibball task near the end of the competition game!

[Chris_A]

I had never heard of Treibball. Thanks for mentioning it. Looks like fun.

[D.Spinka]

I just looked it up on YouTube as well. The sport looks fun and like a great activity for dogs. We just recently started taking our dog to a dog facility that does barn hunt, dock diving and Schutzhund. I’ll ask if they offer this, I’m curious.

[Beth]

Sounds like an awesome facility you’re in with there.

[Beth]

This video is of Gibson practicing “Bye & Away” in a figure 8 between 2 balls in our basement. We are working up to things gradually and are now learning to touch the ball and do “Bye and Away” behind 2 balls in a row.

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