Treibball & Crosstraining

I am having so much fun!! Kiernan and I are working hard at learning Treibball right now, and it’s amazing!

For those of you yet to discover treibball, it’s herding for the urban dog. With big exercise balls – the ones you can sit on. There are some excellent videos on YouTube.com demonstrating the sport. Just search for “urban herding.” Out in a big open field there are 8 balls arranged in a triangle, with the point away from a soccer goal at one end. In come a dog and handler toward the goal. Then one at a time, the dog goes out to the balls, and nudges them into the goal.

I can’t believe how many of the elements we’re practicing will apply to our other goals… like formal obedience and herding. That’s not even considering the teamwork and relationship building just from working together. He has to go out around the balls to a spot beyond them and wait for direction. There’s our go outs for directed jumping, and away to me and go bye for herding. That pause before beginning to push the balls? Perfect time to practice the signal exercise. Our next exercise was to learn how to stay on the opposite side of a ball from me. We started with a stationary ball, so he’s had a lot of practice swinging his rear into a nice straight front, and keeping straight with me as either I or the ball change positions. And his drop on recall was taught using a distant object to go around – like the go-out.

Yea for cross training! (And watch for us in the obedience ring…)

Here’s the really cool thing – there’s no breed restrictions. Any dog can learn to do it.

For anyone that’s interested, I am teaching an introductory class to treibball at Lucky Dog in Detroit Lakes on Saturdays this summer. Class starts at noon. Call 218-847-4100 to register for the next session!