Flyball Racing : The Dog Sport for Everyone

Rating:
Summary: Vague and somewhat confusing
Review: I read this book as someone already familiar with the sport of Flyball. I found that it was a general overview of the sport as opposed to a training manual that would help you to teach a dog to play flyball. The training advice is somewhat vague and dated. Current training techniques are mentioned, but not explained for a novice to understand. This book utilizes the old method of pattern training and does not go into teaching or proofing the elements of the course. I found the book Flyball Training: Start to finish to be a much more thorough and concise guide of great use to the novice or experienced enthusiast.

Rating:
Summary: Detailed explaination of teaching through Back Chaining
Review: This books gives directions for construction jumps,including a wonderfully simple "puppy jump", advice on solving problems (like getting a tight turn). She does sometimes seem to be relying on repetition to get your dog into the habit of what you want, but this would easily be used with clicker training to improve the time and reliability of these behaviors.
The most impressive part of this book though, was it's step by step detailing of how to teach your dog to run using BACK-CHAINING. She breaks the behavior into at least 12 different segments - starting with the last jump on the return and back-chains to the total run, including proofing the return to the 4th jump should your dog miss the ball and have to retrieve it before it's return run. (if you don't know what back-chaining is, check out Karen Pryor's clicker site - it's a GREAT learning tool)