Disc Dog Team Movement with Leaping Catches
Creating arcing, round lines in disc dog team movement is no easy task. It is rather simple, but it ain’t easy. The Squeaky Wheel Form is a terrific tool for creating shapes in your game and working on the component Functions of the Leaping Catch while improving your throwing skills.
Epic Easy Stuff – Clock & Counter
Epic is good at this skill. He takes the jump, he looks in and prepares for the target. I would like to see him a bit more composed and thoughtful in approach of the target, but this is the first time we’ve done this in months. It reminded me why I created it in the first place. This is a terrific skill for a team to have.
The Counter Clock with the Sidearm throw was pretty challenging, largely because of the compact distance I was working. At 5-7 yards, the Sidearm is a bit tough to throw and hover. We will take this skill out to 10 yards as we get reacquainted with the Squeaky Wheel Form.
The Clockwise expression of this form went well. It is also a bit small, we will probably push it out another yard or 3 as we get more experience.
We’ll keep working Clock & Counter in separate sessions for a while and bring an alternating Clock vs Counter expression of the form in the near future.
It’s a Wheel – Wheels Are Round
You don’t want to move too much in this form. The dog should be moving due to the jump and the placement of the disc. Your cues and reward placement should drive the dog around in a circular pattern.
Moving forward to send the dog to the jump will yield a linear approach to the disc. This form is about arcing lines and intercepting catches. Stay put in the center and work the dog around rather than moving with the dog in linear fashion.
I mentioned above that the throws were a little short and the scale of this pattern is a bit small. I chose to maintain my position as the hub of the wheel which meant that I needed to shrink the circle a bit. After a few session’s experience we should be able to stretch that out quite a bit.
We are also using a Go AroundAn Around, or a Go Around is the traditional disc dog set up move. The dog goes around the handler’s body in a clockwise or counter clockwise fashion allowing dog and handler to... More in this skill. It is just as easy to pull the dog around in Basic Flatwork Position
Basic Flatwork Position (BFP) is a standard position of the handler in the Working Flank; hand reaching out towards the dog (usually with a disc) with the dog on the same plane as... More (BFP) on the working Flank
Out to the side of the handler is the Flank. If the dog is out to the handler's right or left the dog is on Flank. If the dog is moving with the... More.
Loot Hard Stuff
Loot is an unbalanced dog. He really likes to run Counter Clock.
The first half of the video features Loot running Clock and you can clearly see that on most all the catches he turns off after the catch in the counter clock direction.
Throughout this session, I was throwing the Backhand
The Backhand toss is the traditional disc throw. While it might not be the easiest throw of them all, it is the easiest to throw a hundred yards, and it is the easiest... More throws somewhat short and inside his line. This made the throws artificially short. If he were a bombsquad leaping catcher and if he were a clockwise dog I would have pushed those out to about 7-9 yards, more like the distance on the counter clock repetitions in the 2nd half of the video.
The Sidearm tosses are tough coming off of the jump and on that Counter Flank. Without a defined pattern or purpose for placement, making this throw is not at all easy. Getting practice on it in systematic fashion is a big reason the Squeaky Wheel Form is so valuable.
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