Growing up I always had dogs, but my husband didn’t because he and his dad were “allergic.” It was kind of one of the conditions when we decided to get married that he would let me have a dog. He told me that he wanted a dog that could catch frisbees, so, we have a dog that is an excellent frisbee catcher!
Today I’m going to walk you through the steps I took to teach Pepper to catch a frisbee.
What you will need:
A dog
A thrower (aka you)
A frisbee
These are my favorite kind of frisbee. I find that the soft rubbery dog frisbees are the best. We tried the hard plastic kind for a while, but they would crack when she would bite down on them and they would cause cuts in her mouth that would make her bleed. Not good. Her grandparents bought her one of these, but it also makes her bleed. It’s sturdier than the rubbery ones though.
Frisbees do not make good chew or pull toys. Every time we leave a frisbee with a dog sitter it gets ruined because the people will play tug with Pepper, so that is one of our rules. She only gets the frisbee when it’s time to play the right game with it. Otherwise, they will just get ruined.
A large area to play
Your yard may be big enough, but it may not be, just try it out to see. We started Pepper out at a dog park in our apartment complex. Since then we’ve tried to find large open fields for her to play in. A dog park might be a good place, we’ve also played with her in a large open space behind our church. Just find a place that works well for you. Sometimes we will play across our large front yard and our neighbor’s front yard.
First, your dog needs to know how to play fetch. We were pretty lucky. Since Pepper is a retriever she pretty much “came out of the box” knowing how to play fetch. We didn’t have to teach her. She doesn’t need to know how to play fetch with a frisbee, any toy will do.
Step 2.
Take your dog outside and start playing fetch with a frisbee. She doesn’t need to be able to catch it, just to chase it and bring it back. It’s also ok if you are not good at throwing a frisbee. You will get better. When Pepper was little, she was really terrible and giving toys back. She was great at bringing them back but bad at letting go. That is ok. We would use two frisbees when we took her out so that she would drop one when we would throw the other.
Step 3.
This step is super great because you don’t really have to do anything. Eventually, your dog will learn that it’s easier, or more fun to catch the frisbee before it lands. When Pepper figured this out it was a game-changer. Now she loves to play frisbee and she is so good at it. When we take her out other people who see us playing are always really impressed.
You will continue to get better at throwing a frisbee too. When we first started, we were pretty bad. Now we’re pretty good at it. I tell people that you can get better at anything you do 200 times a day for a year. That’s not to say that you need to play that often. Play as often as you like, but we loved the game, so we played it all the time. We still play a lot, but not quite as much since we have Pancake too. (BTW he is awful at throwing the frisbee, but he still loves it. He’ll get better eventually too.)
Step 4.
This step kind of goes along with your other dog training, but you need to teach your dog the “drop it” command so that she will release the frisbee. Once you have this down, you’re pretty much good to go and your dog will be an excellent frisbee catcher too!
Even though Pepper’s been playing frisbee for a long time now, she doesn’t always catch them.
I would love to see pictures and videos of your dogs playing frisbee! Please share them on my Facebook page!
This is just a simple outline of some simple tricks you can teach your dog. Some are more purposeful and some are just fun.
1. Sit
Sitting is one of the most basic dog tricks and probably the first one for most dog owners. It’s a pretty simple trick for a dog to learn and it can be very useful for dog owners.
2. Lay down
Laying down is another very basic, but useful dog trick. It is simple for the dog to learn and for the owner to teach.
3. Stay
Stay is a very useful dog trick that can be used to keep your dog out of the way for a short period of time. You can use this time to clean up something that is unsafe, to put away something that you want to protect from your dog, or to set up a fun surprise for her.
4. Fetch
Fetch is not really a necessary trick, but it is the most basic dog game. Fetch simply requires a dog to bring something to you. It’s best to start out with a ball or some kind of dog toy that your dog really likes so that they will be interested in the game. Toys that squeak are also good motivators for your dog.
5. Shake
This is another fun trick for your dog to learn. I remember teaching it to Pepper. She hated it at first, but now it is one of her favorites. I would have her sit, then I would say shake while I picked up one of her front paws. I would give her a treat after. She’s gotten so good at it that she will often shake multiple times, which front paw she gives you. (She thinks this is a really easy way to get a treat now.)
This one is kind of a bonus trick because once you’ve taught your dog to shake, waving is pretty simple. Most dogs will pick up on the hand sign of offering your hand when you go to shake, and they will extend a paw for you to take. In this case, you would start out the same way, except extend our hand all the way to them, stop a little bit short so that their paw basically misses your hand and say wave. From there I recommend moving on to using a hand sign that looks more like waving so that it doesn’t get confused with shake.
6. Nose
This is a really cute trick you can teach your dog. The goal is that you offer your hand with the palm out while you say “nose” and your dog will bump your hand with her nose. My sister actually taught this one to Pepper while she was visiting. She learned it pretty much instantly because she is always using her nose to show us what she wants.
7. Turn around
Turning around is a fun trick for your dog. I will just use my finger and indicate spinning around and Pepper will turn around in a circle. It’s very cute. Pepper doesn’t seem to mind the trick at all, but Princess, the dog I had growing up, must have thought it was the most annoying thing I could ask of her. She would make such a fuss about doing it. It was very cute and brings back very happy memories for me.
8. Roll-over
This trick is also just for fun. When Pepper was learning this trick I first had her lay down. Then I would kind of push her over onto her back and then all the way over and say roll-over. It took a little while for her to figure this one out, and for some reason, she has now decided that it means to turn around, probably because the hand sign I use it too similar to the hand sign for turn-around, so I actually had to update it to “roll over all the way.” Pepper is kind of picky about doing this trick, but when she’s properly motivated she remembers it and can perform it perfectly.
9. Go to bed
Go to bed a command where I will point to one of Pepper’s many dog beds through our house and she will go there, lay down, and wait for me to release her with an “ok.” This trick is a little bit more advanced because it requires her to wait for a longer time and she needs to wait for me to release her. It is useful for getting her out of the way when we are doing something that could hurt her, like moving large boxes in and out of the garage or re-arranging furniture. She can usually still see us from where she is, but she is not underfoot, so she doesn’t get stepped on, or trip us, which is nice. Ideally, if Pepper learned this trick perfectly, I would be able to send her to bed when someone comes to the door so that she would not bark and them and jump all over them, but I haven’t gotten her trained that well on it yet.
10. Play dead
This is another one of my favorite tricks that Pepper does. You can teach your dog to lay down and roll over partway so that they are lying on their back and stay there, or you can go a step farther and have your dog turn around before lying down and rolling over onto her back. I did this because I thought it was cute. I used a finger shooting hand sign and the command is “bang bang bang.” So, when I want Pepper to play dead I look at her and use two-finger guns to “shoot” her three times then she turns around in a circle, lies down and rolls over onto her back with her feet sticking up in the air. When I was teaching this trick to Pepper, she actually added a few steps of her own that have stuck, and I just think they are so cute. Before she turns around, she will bump my hand to make sure I have a treat for her, then after she turns around, she will touch my foot and then lie down, and rollover with her feet in the air. I have no idea why she added this step, but I find it very endearing, so I never bothered to correct it.
