Beagle Flyball - No natural interest in balls

Does anyone know of any Beagles that do flyball? I've had a good search on Google and can't find any!

Our 16 month old Beagle Bitch starts flyball on Sunday. She's been doing agility for 4 months now (and is loving it). She's never been interested in toys (other than in destroying them). Our agility teacher encouraged us to get her playing with toys as it'd make agility training more effective. We tried everything and had almost given up when we stumbled across our secret weapon -- a tennis ball with a slit in it and a lump of something tasty inside. The nice thing is that she has to bring the ball back to us so we can release the treat for her.

Anyway, shortly after discovering our secret weapon Beanie started really enjoying going over jumps, collecting a ball and bringing it back to us. It's one of her favorite games. So I thought I'd find her a flyball club so she can learn more. (She already does Beagle racing which is 100m sprints chasing a lure and she's very good).

But since then I've been researching and have discovered that it's mostly collies that do the sport and that it's important to be ball obsessed. Ours certainly isn't obsessed with her ball - we're just chuffed to bits that she likes it a bit!

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear about unlikely candidates taking to flyball! We're not planning on competing - we just want her to learn lots of different skills and have some fun. But just in case we turn up and there's a room full of collies with natural ability I want to know that other dogs like ours have mastered the skill!

Here's a little clip showing her going over the jumps to get her ball:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27172079@N08/3298496838/

Love the vid!!! There are a few GSD's that do flyball at my club. Good luck with it!

Looks like there is only 1 beagle registered with the BFA, but heck, I'd say give it a go!

I know of someone who runs a team which consists of GWP, Goldies and L. Munsters...so not your average FB dogs, but the dogs enjoy themselves, they have a fab day out and doing very well against the collies

Hiya dont know if youve looked but on youtube theres a beagle doing flyball, type in beagle flyball - he/she is pretty quick too ! x

Goodluck with the flyball who are you training with?

I don't know of any beagles currently competing in Scotland think there might be two that are in training

In our team we have range of dogs and handlers from the good old border collies to a GSD, kelpie, pyr sheepdog, patterdale and even the cutest yorkiex. Size, shape, age doesnt matter as long as everyone is having fun

DC

The club is Lomand Flyball and we had a great time!

The class was great - everything built up in stages. By the end of the class we put it all together and Beanie didn't do at all badly. Here's a video clip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27172079@N08/3319146305/

I think she's going to enjoy flyball! The fun part for her is the running and jumping, but once she understands that she has to bring back the ball I don't think she'll have a problem with it. She was very focused and was watching all the dogs take their turn - you could see her little brain ticking away trying to figure out what it was all about.

I love the videos. I think your beag will be quite good at flyball, the way she jumps you could have a good little agility beag there to.

I do agility with our Beagles. One of the shows we go to they do a 'cleverdogs' competition which is a cross between agility and flyball, our youngest dog loves doing it. It only took her about 10 mins to get the hang of flyball and she was quite quick.

awww beanie looks like a natural, I laughed when she stuck her nose in the bucket!

I'd like to hear a little more about the cleverdogs competitions!!!!

Beanie has being doing agility for a few months, and whilst she's excellent in many ways we do have problems with keeping her attention. She's been a natural from day one when it comes to the equipment. She loves it and tends to do things properly (contacts etc). She learnt the weave poles in a week, and by 3 weeks I could recall her or send her away through them. In the beginning she did very well on little courses, but I was getting results by getting her excited. She loved it, but when we moved onto distance control it all started to go wrong as she was simply following me rather than taking directions. She got bored and switched of (sniffing down the other end of the arena) when we tried to persevere with doing things correctly. Classes are impossible as the others are moving on and she just doesn't want to know, yet in the things that she's very good at she's being held back. She also gets bored waiting for her turn.

I want to stay with agility as I think it'll be good for her but I need to be innovative and find ways to make it fun while I gradually teach her to follow my commands. We're going to try private lessons for a while until we get her back on track.

Flyball is different. More up her street. The more excited all the other dogs get the more she focuses. She watches intently and never gets bored waiting for her turn.

We've tried combining the two a little bit by getting her to run through tunnels etc and fetch the ball. I'd love to hear more about these competitions you do as it might help to transfer the excitement of flyball into agility.