What is a Flirt Pole?

Brittany

And what is it's purpose. Everyone is always talking about them the videos I looked at on youtube look cruel so maybe I am getting bad vids or misunderstanding something.

Criosphynx

I loooove mine...tires them out in like ten minutes.


its like a giant cat toy. Mine is an old golf club handle with a rope attached to the end, with a toy on the other end.

maybe you think som'thing else is a flirtpole? The dogs aren't forced to participate.

Its just used to play with dogs, or if your more serious, its used for conditioning.

i've been meaning to take a vid of mine.

Brittany

How do you play with it? The videos I watched had a long pole with a string and a toy the dogs were holding onto the toy and the owner was either letting the dog hang in the air or swinging it around.

Criosphynx

Depends...alot of people play with it different...My goal is to have it skitter around like a critter on the ground for them to chase it....Kiwi likes to jump high for it, so I hold it up high for her...and Chili will hang from it all day if you let him. Thats his thing

Its basically just fake prey your trying to get them to chase and kill and shhtuff.

Zim

its called a flirtpole because the idea is to "flirt"x with the dog's prey drive. meaning their goal is to get it and your goal is to keep it from them.

its used to sharpen rhe dog's agility by making them have to do fast turns, spur of the moment jumps, etc.

i use it to premack prey drive based aggression such as cat chasing.

i also use it to teach impulse control by introducing cues during play like wait and hold. c

fawkese1

pitsandpugs just posted this in the household items as toys section...thought i'd put it here too (hope you don't mind P&P):

Mikey

Oh I have a question about them...

Now Mikey is far from a dangerous breed; however he has quite a high prey drive (it took a long time for him to realize my bunnies were part of the pack and not tasty snacks lol) and he has chased after moose, rabbits in the park and tried to go after coyotes...

He's safe-he's never going to get near wildlife-I'm far too neurotic with him.

AND he's really good with the bunnies now. He spent three weeks alone during the day with two of mine in a dog basket in total reach and didn't do anything to them (except steal their banana) so I doooo trust him with them.


BUT is there any risk using a flirt pole that is kind of designed to increase prey drive? I mean -spilling over into other things. Example would be that some people believe playing tug with your dog can cause dominance problems. So along those lines-are there dangers that people should be aware of when using a flirt pole with their dog-in terms of behavior issues it *MAY * cause?

Criosphynx

it would simply channel his drive toward som'thing appropriate.

in fact you may see animal chasing decline a bit since he now has an outlet for it.

I tried to make a vid this morning but I had to clear the camera first and ran out of time

Mikey

OK that's just what I wanted to hear I wanted to make one for him-I sort of did the same idea with his fetch stick that's on a rope and he seemed to like it