The Floating Disc That Opened the Door to Disc Games

Juno does not chase balls. I found that out the slow way, standing in the middle of my back yard with a tennis ball in my hand, waiting for a border collie mix to decide the ball was interesting. She never decided.

That is the thing about a dog who was bred to work. She wants a job. A ball rolling to a stop in the grass is not a job, and no amount of me waving it around was going to change her mind. So for a while our whole training life was Tuesday and Thursday evenings, fifteen minutes in the yard with the hurdles and then the tunnel, and then nothing at all until the next Tuesday.

Sunday was the dead day. I would drink coffee, look out the kitchen window at the yard, and feel a little guilty about the shed.

About a year ago I bought the Chuckit! Paraflight Flying Disc, size Large. Not because I had a plan. I wanted one thing in the week that was not a drill. There is no equipment in it, nothing to set up and nothing to time.

It sat on the shed shelf for a few days before I even took it out of the wrapper, because I did not know how to start a game with a dog who had never seen a disc. So I started the way you start anything with a dog who has never seen a thing before. I rolled it along the grass.

Two weeks of rolling. Then short, low throws, maybe ten feet, flat as I could make them. That was the whole method. I am a part time bookkeeper in Easley, South Carolina, and a hobby handler on Saturdays, and I am not going to dress that up as a training program. It was me throwing badly and Juno working out that the thing in the air was worth running at.

She does not leap for it. She runs, low and flat, and takes it out of the air about knee height. That is the whole game, and it suits her.

The game itself is simple. I stand at one end of the mown strip by the fence. I throw low and flat. Juno runs. If she catches it, she gets a piece of chicken from the treat bag on my hip, and then we do it again. Fifteen minutes and we are both done. It is the only part of the week where nothing is being taught.

It does not fly well in the wind. My yard is open on the north side and a steady breeze turns a good throw into a wobbling one that no dog can read. On those mornings I roll it along the grass instead and Juno is perfectly happy. A wobbly throw is my problem, not hers.

The listing says it floats. That is a listing fact, not something I can vouch for from experience, because my yard has no pond and no pool and Juno has never had it near water.

It is not a chew toy. I pick it up after every game and the Chuckit! disc goes back on the shed shelf next to the tunnel case. Juno has left small tooth marks in the edge from catching it, and after a year of Sundays that is the only wear on it.

The Large is 9.75 inches across, and I will be honest, that is a little big for a 28 pound dog. She manages it fine on low catches, but a smaller dog should look at a smaller size rather than copying me. I bought Large because the listing puts it with medium to large breeds and because I did not think it through.

I never bought a ball launcher. I watched other owners at the park with one and they looked like they were having a good time. But a launcher only helps if the dog wants the ball, and Juno does not. That is the whole reason the disc works for us and a launcher would not.

The disc never comes to the club on Saturday. The club owns its full size equipment, and our hour at the fairgrounds is about contacts and weave poles and me trying to remember which way the course runs. Sunday is the only day the disc comes out. Keeping the two apart is deliberate. When I started treating the disc as homework, it stopped being fun for both of us.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you that the disc did not turn Juno into a different dog. She still needs her walks. She still gets something wrong every Saturday at the fairgrounds because I gave her a late cue or stood in the wrong place, and no piece of gear fixes my handling. What the disc did was give us one easy thing. Sunday morning, low flat throws over the grass, nobody watching, no equipment to drag out and stake and dry off. That is a small thing. It is also the reason it is still on the shelf a year later instead of in the bottom of the shed with the things I tried once. If your dog already loves a ball, you probably do not need this. If your dog looks at a ball like it is paperwork, it is worth a try.