Flyball - improving passes

I could use a few exercises or pointers for how to improve Cohen's passes onto the lane in flyball.

She will turn, bark and chase another dog coming off the lane if I let her go before the other dog has completely passed her. So far I'm either running her in start, or running very, very wide passes. Coming off the lane, other dogs can pass into her with no problem. It's probably because she's more focused on me for her reward. I guess the box is a less clear or less motivating goal.

I'd like to hear about exercises people do with their dogs to improve passes, and how you manage dogs like Cohen.

We're pretty new to the sport and only really started training about 6 months ago. We've participated in 2-3 tournaments so far, so we've kind of just dropped right into the deep end without a 100% solid base. I'm hugely impressed with how well she's taken to it (she's running 4.3s with a box turn that still needs work), but I'd really like to work out this last kink.

I would just slowly, slowly increase the tight passes a bit at a time. Is there a dog or two on the team that she can play with outside of flyball, and get more comfortable with?

Another thing to try is to just set up the jumps and do recalls back and forth, into other dogs. So have someone hold her at one end, and someone else hold a dog at the other end, where you are. So the dog at your end does a recall first, and then the holder releases her to run to you for a big reward for coming to you and ignoring the other dog.

You could also just have someone else hold her and you go to the box end or partway, and do the same thing - help her focus on the box. A boxloader calling and teasing her would help to. I remember my old guy would go NUTS trembling when the box loader started egging him on at the start.

Just give her time and keep working at it, chances are she's just unsure of that dog coming back into her - one of the last teams I ran on NEVER practiced passing, and even ran the dogs on different nights. My girl did NOT like that at all and had to protest the strange dog she had to pass several times. Not good training on that team's part! She was pretty sure that dog belonged on a different team....:rofl1: