My dog is in a down, facing me, about five or six feet away. Waiting. She is patient, but her ears are forward, her body poised, ready for action. Her intent brown eyes alternate between my own and the large pink exercise ball that sits between us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I give her the command. “Push!”

Her body surges forward. Her head dips and, like a billiards master, she connects with the ball. Low and strong, controlled. The ball shoots towards me and I exclaim “Yes!”. Deliver a piece of chicken. Her tail wags briefly, high and fast, and she takes a quick step backwards, watching me closely. She’s ready to go again, ready to deliver this round, pink sheep to me, her shepherd.

Urban Dog Enrichment.

Three simple words, with a sometimes not-so-simple implication.

100 years ago our furry companions were more than just pets. They were workers. They cleared vermin, retrieved game, corralled sheep. Leashes were virtually non-existent. Dogs patrolled their farms or wandered their neighborhoods, coming home for dinner and maybe a dry place to sleep.

With the shift of dogs to inside animals - city animals, house pets - comes lots of benefits. Better health care for our dogs, better diets, longer lives. We all have a reason for keeping a dog as a pet, whether it’s companionship, a warm body to snuggle, a walking companion, or just a tail that’s always ready to wag when we get home after a long day. Dogs are fantastic at meeting our needs.

But what about our dog’s needs? They’ve gained a lot with our modern society. But what have they lost as part of this migration to city dwellings?

Dogs are intelligent beings. Almost all of them were bred to work. To solve problems. Some were bred to work independently, others to work closely with humans. Surely we can do more for these intelligent, beautiful creatures, for our “best friends”, than simply feeding them, walking them twice a day and throwing that same tennis ball over and over and over again? Can’t we?

Absolutely. So back to those three words. Urban Dog Enrichment.

There are all sorts of fun things that we can do with our dogs to enrich their lives. Here in Victoria we can participate in sports such as Agility, Flyball, Rally Obedience, Canine Freestyle, Nose Work and Search-and-Rescue style tracking.

And recently, a new sport has come to town.

The sport is called “Treibball”. Aka “Urban Herding”, aka “Big Ball Herding”. This sport comes from Europe and is starting to gain traction here in North America. Why? Because there are dozens of breeds and mixed breeds of herding dogs in our city, and very few sheep or cattle.

My dog Cobi is a Victoria Adoptables rescue dog. She’s five years old, at best guess a mix of border collie, shepherd and husky. She’s gleefully sloppy on agility equipment, enjoys training and performing tricks, but her true love is chasing. Herding. The city tells me that I can’t keep sheep in my back yard, and why would I want to, really? But I can keep an exercise ball.

So when our head trainer Sherry came back from a workshop with the skills to teach this new sport, this thing called “treibball”, this herding for city dogs, I was pumped. Sign us up!

First some skills. Cobi, and the other dogs in her class, needed to learn how to touch, and then push an object.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They needed to learn how to go around something, and how to go lie down on a mat at a distance from their handlers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They also needed to learn how to back up. This is to help the dog get into position, but if you already do a sport like agility or freestyle you’ll know that most dogs have no idea what their back end is doing. It simply follows them around like a little caboose.

 

To teach a dog to be mindful of their rear end is an interesting and, I’ve found, rewarding task. Now that Cobi knows how to back up she uses it in all sorts of scenarios, such as backing out of that “cougar hole” at Mt. Doug, or getting out of the way when I’m carrying the laundry down the stairs. It’s a useful skill, truly.

 

 

 

 

 

And then we got to put it all together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So now when I get out our big pink ball her eyes immediately widen. Her head comes forward, she rushes for her mat. She loves the word “Push!”. It means “go shove that crazy ball, girl!” It means food. It means praise. And most of all, it means a job. It means building a connection with me, her owner, her handler, her person. It means accepting and embracing my leadership. It means a fun game, a tired brain, and a happy dog.

It’s all about those three words – Urban Dog Enrichment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Roberta Press, Trainer, SmartDog Training

Treibball – what the heck is it anyways?	Sherry’s dog Simon practicing Treibball in the snow. (“Snowball”?)
Want more info? Want to give it a try? www.smartdogtraining.ca