Flyball Training

Sunday we met up with the Dolphins down on the Wirral who very kindly accomodated us in their team training session (thanks guys!). It was a prefect opportunity for both teams to practice running as close to racing conditions as possible; i.e. two lanes, lights, 'judges' and a completely strange team of dogs to run against. We were absolutely blessed with the weather as Clatterbridge seemed to be a little haven of sunshine amongst the constant miserable drizzle we seem to be enduring at the moment. It was roasting and I was seriously regreting having worn a long sleeved top. We'd gone all togged up expecting cold, wind and rain! lol

We ran the teams in the same format as we had at Eastham just to make sure it wasn't a fluke and that it does actually work and we weren't dissapointed. We also swapped Lex and Mac back with each other to see what difference that made to each team and quite frankly...it made none! lol Still not sure which one will make the 4th dog in the Demonz at the champs yet, in some ways it's much harder to decide when they're running such similar times, you just end up splitting hairs. The Racers continued to run well with Teal 'well up for it' so that was good to see. The revelation of the session was probably when I decided to run Spud for a bit in the Pawz. Spud is semi-retired and although he makes the odd outing he quite often comes to tournaments and never runs a leg, as he had done at both Anglesey and Eastham. Well, it seems that my plan to run Spud over 9" with Teal to give him an easier time was not to his liking as we ran him over 13" in training with the Pawz and he ran brilliantly, sub 5.00secs every leg. Ok, not Div 1 material but certainly not shoddy, especially when you consider that he's coming up 8, has a congential spinal defect and arthritis in both his elbows and wrists! lol If he keeps this performance up I will definitely start running him more, it's always handy to have that fresh 5th dog in reserve, especially when it's a hot day and the dogs are tiring more quickly.

We spent quite a bit of time working with Bridget's young Bryning dog Tearlaidh (a Ghost-Molly son). This boy is fast and has bags and bags of potential but he is a hard headed beast and harnessing that speed and power is another thing all together! He's definitely improving in his focus but there's still a way to go yet before he's completely bombproof I think. An interesting thing we noticed is that when given a long run in where he builds up a real head of steam, he struggles to shorten his stride enough to make the 10ft hurdle gaps so over-jumps each hurdle. This leaves him landing the 2nd hurdle down to the box right in front of hurdle 3 forcing him to take hurdles 3 and 4 in a single jump! It's phenomonal to watch but how to correct this?? Who knows. For the time being it seems a shorter run in is the way to go. I've certainly never seen anything like it before though.

Anyway, that's our last session before the Champs so we'll just have to see how it all goes when we get there. Looking forward to it whatever happens!