Otterpop's Magic Double Frisbee Running Dogwalk Method.

Otterpop got kind of taken along for the ride when I trained Gustavo's running dogwalk. She never had that great of a dogwalk. It's not her favorite piece of equipment. Frequently at trials, there is a man or lady in an unattractive hat running next to it waving around a large ax and screaming that he or she wants to bludgeon Otterpop and chop her into smithereens. Ax wielding maniacs on the agility field really put a damper on Otterpop's dogwalk enthusiasm years ago.

So when I decided to convert Gustavo's 2o/2o dogwalk to a running contact ala my super favorite agility waif Silvia Trkman style, Otterpop learned to run fast down the board as well. And where Gustavo's retraining went along just like the magic Silvia recipe says it will, even though I probably didn't exactly follow the recipe, Otterpop's dogwalk went kaplooey as we reached full dogwalk height.


Here's how I've been fixing it. Luckily, no one visits Team Small Dog for practical dog training advice, so I'm not going to be held accountable if you try this on your own. I am not selling magic here. I am selling charisma and joi de vivre and shirts if you need 'em. Charisma and joi de vivre are free, the shirts are all about 20 bucks. Buy a shirt, I toss in fruit basket. This week only. ONLY if you order before Thursday. For the fruit.

No one is making me a spamtastic marketing extravaganza of facebook videos about the greatness of Otterpop's Magic Double Frisbee Running Dogwalk method.

Yet.

But who knows. Maybe you'll try it and tell your friends. And they'll tell 2 friends. And so on and so on and so on.

Shall we begin?


Materials needed:

1 dogwalk
2 frisbees. We like the orange and blue squirrel ones the best.

How does it work?

Put one frisbee out about 4 feet from the end of the dogwalk on the ground. The other one goes in your hand.


Run your dog as fast as you can over the dogwalk. The presence of the ground frisbee magically tells your dog to keep all her feet in the yellow contact and as they do, you throw the hand frisbee out past the ground frisbee and your dog will bypass boring ground frisbee for the flying air frisbee. Which used to be the hand frisbee.

And it's not magic. I don't think. I don't know.

Do this again. And again. If your dog misses a contact, do not throw the hand frisbee. Just do it again.

Eventually your dog will adjust how she runs, but still run fast, to hit the yellow paint. As long as you keep the ground frisbee there.

Do not fade the ground frisbee too early. Possibly ever. Except in trials. I don't know. We haven't quite worked this out yet. I will report back in a month or so.

Good luck!