The most favorite thing my Staffie Guess does is Flyball!
I made a video of her training last week, you can view it here:

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Personally I didn't like the flyball at first. The trainers at my dogschool convinced me to come to training to try out. Guess absolutely loved it
We're training for about a year now, hopefully we will compete with the team next year

ha ha! this is a riot!

No one around here does flyball--the closest is 2 hours away

It looks great fun, I can imagine Tala would love it!

LOL!! She certainly likes it! She almost crashes the machine!

Do any of the Tamaskan owners do Flyball at all?

That brilliant.

Althouh I think Diesel would just look at me as if to say, well why should I make the ball fly when you have a perfectly good arm.... LOL

Diesel has very little motivation to play ball games. He may play once or twice to show me he knows what I want him to do, then hell just wonder off and try and find a live thing to play with.

I do know more peoples that do this whit there dogs. Its a great sport to do whit them if they love it. A shame to say that mine don't do it Bobbi thinks he get tired of it hahahaha people that know him knows what I mean and Bine is to over enthusiastic that she would bring the hole box whit here instead of only the ball

Nice video, Guess looks like she's having a great time.

miran wrote:

and Bine is to over enthusiastic that she would bring the hole box whit here instead of only the ball

LOL

I sort of have the same problem as Nick, Tala doesn't really retrieve things, but she loves going over the jumps in agility, so not sure if this would motivate her to catch and bring the ball back?!

A small trick to learn a dog not to run off with the ball: Use 2 (or even more) balls.
Throw one, let the dog chase it and directly show the second one! This way They wont run away with the ball and you can learn them the game isn't over when the ball is thrown...There is even more to come!

Really retrieving is secondary, as Rahne already said

Rahne: So it's OK if the dog even shows a slight interest in the ball, but doesn't necessarily do a full-on retrieve? Abby is interested in the ball and will go after it if it's thrown, but once she has the ball and has run around the yard for a minute or two, she drops it and loses interest...that is, until I go fetch the ball and throw it again.

I went to the local playground with Abby yesterday and she enjoyed jumping over the balance beam they had there.

I also know a few tricks to make the ball more interesting. If anyone is interested I can post a few

She does show a lot of interest in the ball which is great

If she really drops the ball everytime you call her you could try to learn her the command 'hold'. You should give her the ball and if she takes it in her mouth you should say 'hold' to her, wait a few seconds and then reward her for it. If she seems to understand it you could put the ball on the ground and as soon as she takes the ball in her mouth say 'hold' again, wait a few seconds and then reward her for it.
Then you could throw the ball, not to far, and repeat the same routine.

@Rahne

Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a try when I go back to my sister's house. At the house I'm staying at for the summer (with my other sister) in another city, we don't have a secure yard - it's only partially fenced.

@Karen

I'm a person who likes to think ahead as much as I can so I was obviously jumping hurdles in my head. Haha. The thing is, she'll play with the ball by herself for a little while and then lay down with it and roll around in the grass. If I show her another ball or pick up the ball she left behind, she'll shoot up like a rocket ready for me to throw the ball again.

Prefend the lying down. Throw 3-5 times in a row and stop. No matter if she is still in for an other throw.