Flyball Classes with Rocky Mountain Flyball

Schedule of Classes

We have weekly classes in both Loveland and Longmont weather permitting. See our Practice page for times and places.

Flyball Classes for the Masses

Any dog can compete in flyball regardless of it's breed or registry, even mixes. Many of the top earning flyball dogs are mix breed dogs! To learn a little more about Flyball, read The Sport of Flyball down the page.

Rocky Mountain Flyball offers training sessions at $10/week or $100 for 11 weeks. We often describe flyball training as a light-bulb affect. One day the dog will finally complete the needed actions exactly as we've been training and it will seem as if the dog will look at you and say "Why didn't you TELL me that's what you wanted?".

Some dogs will do well up to their first tournament and then revert to bad habits and some reinforcement of training will be needed. In training, we don't believe in going half way. We believe in training dogs to compete well, not just run down get a ball and come back. We focus on drive as one of the primary training methods with additions of conditioning and box turn.

Rocky Mountain Flyball has a policy of flyball for everyone. If our team doesn't look right for you, we can try to put you in contact with various teams in the region. We have no problem with connecting you with other teams. It's not about us, it's about flyball. We want you up and playing however works best for you!

To prepare your dog for flyball classes find a loved toy or "reward" and work on the dogs absolute focus on you and the toy/reward in face of all other distractions. This is often the first step in flyball training. A tournament is a high excitement place and the dog has to understand that the fun and end of the game is you and their reward. Come on out to a practice sometime and see what we mean. Flyball is an excellent sport to help teach obdience, confidence and is a great outlet of energy for dogs and owners a like!

The Sport of Flyball

Flyball is a fun sport that represents a relay race between four dogs that race down a 51 foot lane over four jumps, trigger a flyball box, retrieve a ball and return down the lane over the jumps. The next dog in the line-up can not cross the start line until the other dog returns. In a tournament setting you race against another team. The fastest dog in flyball currently can complete a run in 3.5 seconds. The fastest time in Flyball currently for a heat to be completed by four dogs is 15.22 seconds!

A single flyball race is built up into various "heats". Depending on the heats one determines the winner of an individual race. There are various types of racing: 1)Regular, where any four dogs can compete, 2)Multi-breed, where each dog on the team must be a different breed (Mix is a breed). 3)Veterens, where dogs must be 7 or older. Veterens get to race over lower jump heights. Though tournaments include the ability for tournament standings which reflect national statistics, when you play flyball with your dog, even though another team of dogs is present you are actually racing against yourself. This is where individual dogs flyball points come in.

All dogs on a team who complete a heat within a certain time-frame receive points that accumulate towards titles for individual dogs. This makes Flyball a somewhat unique sport that includes the ability to compete against other teams, but to also have individual accomplishments on a team. If your team can run "clean" they receive points regardless if the team finishes the heat before the other team.