Tara, Get on the Ball! (ON the huge exercise ball!)

[TaraM1285]

I've been meaning to take a video of Tara working on the balance/stability ball for awhile now, and tonight I finally did it. I started her by shaping putting her paws on a regular round exercise ball, which wasn't too hard because she's had tons of perch work and always tries that behavior pretty quickly when we're working with a new object. After she was comfortable with that we moved to the egg-shaped ball. To get her whole body on the ball in different positions I lure her and/or physically help her. The ball is a little smaller than usual as we lost some air in the beginning.

As you can see, she needs a fair amount of support when standing, but much less when sitting or lying on the ball. Ideally, her back would be completely straight when she's standing, but you can see there's a bit of a curve to it in the video. I'm fairly certain that this is because she feels more stable with her hind feet on the flatter part of the ball, which scrunches her up. Once I re-inflate it all the way, I'll re-evaluate and hope that it will give her enough room to spread out a bit more. Otherwise we'll have to find a bigger ball.

Enjoy!

You Tube

You Tube

[MaggieRoseLee]

I can't see the video WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Wait, think I need to update my Flashplayer....

You Tube

You Tube

http://www.wizardofpaws.net/pages/store.htm

http://www.ballsnbands.com/dog_condi...ise_balls.html

[Jason L]

Saw this on the other board. That is really cool. I got a wobble board for Ike but I need to get Dottie on it now because we have just started doing baby plank teeter at agility and Dottie is (predictably) not as cool about the wobbling as Ike is. I like the egg shape ball . I think it might work better than the wobble board. Where did you get it?

[TaraM1285]

I actually got mine from DianaB on the other board, but it looks like the second link MRL posted has the egg shaped balls too. Have fun! We love our ball sessions!