Jewlieee
Posted : 9/27/2010 11:59:54 PM
First, be extremely careful with the back vault. Seriously. A dog nikons size really shouldn't do them. The landings are hard and the risk of injury is really high. I have been warned off doing back vaults with neiko a lot and by many frisbee experts. I wanted to do it though so I went ahead and trained it. Now that he has it, I see the problems with a dog his size (50 lbs give or take) doing this trick. He gets so focused on the frisbee that he completely ignores everything else, especially his placement in the air and his landing. He has had many landings where all 4 of his legs gave out under him due to the height and speed he had in the air. That is NOT good. he is well conditioned too and usually very aware of his body positioning. So, we rarely do the back vault anymore. Its just too risky and I don't want him out of commission. I do an up and over now as a pre-trick to the actual frisbee toss.
Ok all that said, here's how I trained it: first I trained him to get up on a balance ball, while I held it. I sat on the bed with the ball between my knees and lured him from the bed to the ball. Once he got his balance down pat, being able to spin around while on the ball, go up on 2 paws, etc. we moved on. The reason for the balance ball was to get him used to getting up on something that moved under his feet that was a couple feet off the floor.
Next, I got on all 4's in my living room, next to the couch. I had him walk from the couch on to my back, stand there for a second then released him to the floor.
Next I removed the couch part and had him jump on my back from the floor.
Eventually, I took it outside on all 4's. Then I stood up and just bent over. At this point, I introduced the frisbee as the lure instead of the treat. The frisbee toss was the reward for the up and over.
Once he got that down, I introduced the toss and catch while he was on my back. Be prepared for a lot of pain once you add in the toss! I can't even describe the pain of those claws diggin in then propelling the dog off! This is why most freestylers wear kevlar for vests.
During all this its important to practice your placement of the ball without the dog. You have to have your timing and placement down perfectly or you risk injuring your dog. The dog is going to go for the catch no matter what and that's all it will be focused on. So if you throw the ball wrong which makes the dog twist wrong or just too high or too long, its all over.
Be careful.