The van is back (again!)

The van was back in the garage yesterday after the gearstick to gearbox linkage broke just as we were pulling out from Sutton Fields!! This meant it was stuck in 1st gear so I had to pull over and call for the breakdown people to come and tow us home…not a happy bunny!!

At least the garage (that had just fitted the new gearbox!)were very good and fixed it straight away yesterday so I picked it up after work and popped to see my brother and sister-in-law since it was her birthday. My brother has just started a new job (fitting out narrow boats!) but his previous job was at a signwriters and I’d asked him to do us some more team stickers for the box, buckets and jumps etc and make us some team backboards (yeh…now that sounds pretty serious doesn’t it! lol) anyway…he popped out to put the stuff in the van and I came out to this…



(please ignore the filthy state of my van!! lol)

He had been offering to sign the van for ages but I rather like being incognito (wink) but I do quite like these and they are quite subtle I suppose.

Playing Catch up

Have been pretty rubbish at taking pics and updating the blog etc the past couple of weeks…just been very busy with one thing and the other…sorry!

Newark

What can I say…it was a hectic one! We headed off down to Dogs Unleashed at Newark Showground and had a brilliant weekend with glorious weather throughout. I also picked Maizy
up in Mansfield and took her down to Berkshire to be mated to the lovely Rupert (Silvertips Knight of Danalimatt) so fingers crossed we’ll have some lovely new cocker puppies early September.

Unfortunatley I’d had to leave Mac at home following his minor surgery. The growth on his digital pad turned out to be a Canine Viral Papilloma, something very unusual in a dog of his age (more commonly seen in puppies) and thankfully nothing to worry about. The wound has actually healed very well but the dressing caused some irritation to his dew claw so his recovery has taken a little longer than I’d hoped. Saturday we ran the Racers in Div 1 and got absolutely slaughtered. Without Mac we ran Faith who, for some completely unknown reason, was just on another planet!! Just no focus at all, watching the other lane, turning the wrong way off the box and just generally running like a slug…SO frustrating!! We came 5th out of 6 with a fastest time of 18.82…pants! lol

We also ran the Pawz in division 2 where we came bottom, just totally outclassed as we were missing Faith from that team and also ended up pulling Teal who had a badly a swollen back foot after suffering some sort of infection between her toes, ah well…one of those weekends!

I did take Drake over to have a go at the Scurry Bandits which turned out to be quite a tightly fought contest which he won!! He did the retrieve over the fences in a time of 12.87secs, 0.25sec faster than anyone else managed and the only dog to go under 13secs all weekend. Clever cocker. Everyone over there was so nice and friendly, we had some good banter and got a lovely prize too. Bailey also ran and came 3rd with a time of 13.19 proving that in cases like this, accuracy is just as important as straight line speed.

Sunday we had nothing to do so just had a nice day moseying round the rest of the show. Dylan went and won the scurry so it was a Demon Dogz clean sweep! I ran Bailey and Faith in a couple of agility classes NFC which went ok apart from Fi knocking a couple of poles, entirely my fault as I have a habit of bending down on turns which causes her to flatten over the jump and clip the pole…arghhh! She was much more focused at this than her flyball though! Bailey was dead keen and ran really well but was surprisingly controllable; I later discovered that he’d suffered a skin tear on his shoulder the previous day which ended up opening up into quite a large wound. Poor Bailey. It was off to the vets for him on Monday and 11 stitches to pull it all back together…he’s absolutely fine but no flyball for him for a couple of weeks.

We had a brilliant weekend nonetheless. It was nice to catch up with lots of people we don’t often see, good weather and great company and a really good laugh throughout…what flyball is all about!

Rotherham

This weekend started badly with me being stuck in work ‘til 6pm, then having to go home and sort the dogs and the caravan and get over to Rotherham. We made it for about 9.30pm and I had plenty of help setting up and getting sorted while Paul and Alison kindly cooked pizzas for tea! We had a full caravan for the duration of the evening and a good laugh…started the weekend as we meant to go on!

Saturday we were in first thing with the Racers in division 1…even more handicapped this time with an off form Mac and no Bailey! Mac ran a couple of races but I ended up pulling him and we ran Drake instead. We got whooped but we did manage to win one race against Mansfield Marnicks….beaten by a cocker…will they ever live down the shame?? Lol Was great to see our friends at Rotherham setting a new fastest seed time of 17.65 in this division and going on to win it…nice one guys! This team also included 2 ‘Brynings’ (Ollie and Charlie) which was really nice 

We also ran starters with the help of Donna and Neela running 4th dog and everyone ran really really well! Squirrel ended up running start dog, she’s so focused now and was running in from 25ft with some cracking starts and consistent 5.5sec times…this is a VAST improvement! I had said she may never run in open comp as I wouldn’t consider running her in a team unless she started running 5.5 or below. She’s obviously determined to prove me wrong! Radley also ran really well and so too did Neela who was making her flyball debut. I think all new flyballers could do with watching Donna run a dog and take note on how it should be done…she’s SO enthusiastic!!

We put up the ‘party tent’ in the afternoon, one of Steve’s 10m gazebos he’d brought over, and set up chairs, tables and BBQ and decorated with pink balloons for the ’Demon Dogz’ 1st birthday party…exactly one year since we’d first competed. Gemma also came over after work so we were all together and Alison brought a huge pink French fancy birthday cake too. Unfortunately some people had to leave before the BBQ got underway with racing/presentation having finished later than expected but we had a lovely time with all our friends and Conrad and Jackie finally popped their camping cherry and stayed over…in a tent!! Lol Now we’re just trying to persuade Steve to bring the gazebo to every tournament! Lol

Sunday morning we were in first thing again with the Pawz, again this team struggled having lost Drake to the Racers and while Faith
was running better than she had last week she’s still not fully focused. We’ve now had to start doing with her what we do with Ethan and load the ball the opposite side depending on what lane she’s in so that she’s always turning towards the other lane. As it happens she seems to be able to do lovely four footed box turns either way! Lol It’s just a little confusing for the poor boxloader when first and last dogs keep swapping holes!

We had another good weekend anyway with good weather throughout (apart from the downpour over Saturday night). We have a couple of weekends off now before a full month of comps in August starting with Eastham. Time to catch up with jobs at home!

Wet, wet, wet...

...is the only way I can describe our lunchtime walk today. I had to pop along the M61 to Horwich to pick up some stuff in preparation for our trip so decided to take the rabble to Rivington Hall for a run in the meadows by the river at the bottom. This is usually very picturesque at this time of year and since I happened to have the camera in the van I decided to take some pics.

Now, you can't actually see the incessant vertical rain on the photos but I think the state of the dogs and the (lack of) quality of the pics says it all!















On slightly brighter note...

...this is the logo Steve sent me this morning for the back of our T-shirts for next week

...Cool as! :)

Flyball Review of 2008

As we look forward to the New Year I thought I'd document a review of 2008 from a flyballing perspective so here goes...

Drake, Teal, Faith, and Dylan all made their Open competition debuts at the start of 2008 and proved to be little flyballing stars....Ethan, Drake, Dylan and Faith are all now 'Advanced' with Teal not far behind.







In May we won Division One for the first time with our old team, Red Rose Rebels...this team included Mac, Dylan, Bailey, Misty and Oz. It was this same weekend that Gemma and I decided to leave Red Rose and start out on our own smaller and more relaxed flyballing venture; Paul, Alison and Trish came with us and the ’Demon Dogz’ were formed.

Also back in May, Lexie achieved her Gold Award and Bailey his Pearl.





The ’Demon Dogz’ ran for the first time at Rotherham back in July with rosettes for all 3 teams, the following weekend all 3 teams ran new fastest times down at Chilterns show where the Speed Demonz ran 17.59, the fastest time we'd ever run before.

We spent a fantastic 10 days away together for Anglesey and Eastham and then competed in Division One at the British Championships in August, a really amazing experience for us all and a great achievement for our little team. August was topped off with our first Division One win with the Speed Demonz at Ryecroft Farm and a new fastest time of 17.48



September was a total wash out but Storm made his comeback at Rotherham in October, The Racers ran a new fastest time of 18.88

November saw the Speed Demonz seeded 3rd in the country. The Demonz and Racers had a fantastic day at Selby college coming 1st and 2nd in Division One. The Pawz ran a new fastest time of 19.71



The year was rounded off with another Division One win for the Speed Demonz at Doncaster in December.

Also, since running as the Demonz, Dottie and Pip have gained their Silver Awards, Lexie and Mac their Ice Blue Moon's, Storm and Frostie their Pearl and Bailey his Jade.

Not sure we're going to be able to top that in 2009 but we'll have fun trying!! lol

All over for another year...

Had a lovely Christmas although all too short a break as usual. Was working Christmas Eve and am back in work today (boo!!). It has however been a lovely four days, beautiful winter sunshine pefect for dog walking. We were at the beach every day although I completely failed to get any pics (useless I know!). Hazell and Michael came down on Saturday to pick Floyd up, it was lovely to meet Michael's mad Springers (and yes, they are mad...made my cockers look quite tame! lol) and catch up with Hazell and the lovely Jack, River and Scot who came for a family visit too.

Had a little get together at our house on Christmas Eve which was lovely. Trish's eldest daughter Elizabeth brought her guitar and sang a song they had composed about the ’Demon Dogz’ which was just hilarious!! Although not quite as funny as watching my mum trying to play tennis on the Wii after a bottle of Cava (lmao).

Spent Christmas Day with my mum, brother, sister in law and nephews which was really nice. I stayed home on boxing day, walked the dogs and just spent some time at home with them, just totally shattered from the previous week. Spent quite a bit of time just watching Lori's pups; they're growing so fast and so active already!

Spent the weekend packing and measuring up etc for the house move at the end of January...only 5 weekends left...eek!!

p.s. Faith also came in season on Christmas Day...only Faith could time something like that! lol

The Demon Dogz (not a) Christmas Party!!

We had talked about organising a Flyball Team Xmas party this year but decided not to bother since we were already going out for Paul's 40th Birthday. We went to Burlingtons at Broughton the place was beautifully decorated and very festive, there was a great atmosphere and it was absolutely heaving with Christmas revellers and the food and service were fantastic, couldn't have chosen a better place! Alison had been up earlier and decorated the table and also taken the cake which was an enormous Mr Kiplings pink French Fancy (the envy of all the kitchen staff and waitresses apparently! lol)...delicious it was too!

The Birthday Boy!!

Alison

Me and Trish

The Motley Crew! (L-R Alison, Caroline (my mum), Paul, Nat (me!), Trish (trying to look enigmatic apparently! lol) and Gemma. We had to get the waitress to take this one so we could have Gemma in it!

The Cake!!! (Mmmmmmm)

We're all meeting up again this Weds (Christmas Eve) at our house, we always have lots of nice food and drink on Christmas Eve so we decided to invite everyone round for a little Christmas Eve get together, really looking forward to it :)

Ryecroft Farm

Well, what a FANTASTIC weekend we had at Ryecroft Farm. It's only an hour from home and all our teams were running on Sunday but we decided to take the caravans down Saturday afternoon and have a bit of time to chill out which was very nice. We had only booked 2 camping spaces so I stayed with Trish (thanks Trish!). The weather was as good as it's been in ages so it was all very civilised, sitting out enjoying the late afternoon sunshine with a glass of wine. After several more bottles of wine, on account of the fact it was Bridget's birthday (Happy Birthday B!), Gemma finally joined us about 12.30am (she had been working the late shift) and we stayed up and chatted into the early hours and eventually fell into bed...knowing we were running in Div 1 at 8.30 in the morning!!

The alarm went of at 7.00 as usual but it was 7.30 before we woke up properly and then jumped out of bed and dashed around getting dogs walked and fed before racing started. Most tournament organisers run the fastest divisions on the Sunday as they were doing this weekend; the thinking being that they'll get through the racing quicker and have an earlier finish for people having a long way to travel home. However, most tournaments run the days' divisions in reverse order...starting with the lowest and finishing with the highest. I don't know why but this weekend they did it the other way round starting with Div 1 and going down to Div 5 . I actually think this is a good idea, it often happens that Div 1 is the last division to go into the ring after a whole weekends racing and you end up running on the worst ground, especially if it's been wet and the runs and box areas start to get cut up, this sort of churned up/slippy ground obviously affects the faster dogs more.

Anyway, our schedule for the day was...Div 1 with the Speed Demonz (Dylan, Bailey, Lexie, Mist)...Div 2 with the Demon Racers (Mac, Frost, Faith, Teal)...Div 3 ring party, Div 4 off and finishing in Div 5 with the Demon Pawz (Pip, Drake, Dottie, Ethan, Spud) so quite a busy one!

We were all suprisingly spritely considering the late night and the teams all ran brilliantly, better than we could have hoped for with all 3 teams achieving new fastest times!! The Speed Demonz WON divsion 1 (woo hoo!!) and did it with some style, unbeaten all day and a fastest time of 17.48...we finally broke the 17.50 barrier!! This was also the fastest time of the weekend. The Demon Racers came 4th in Division 2, their first time up in Div 2 and they ran a fastest time of 19.01 (oh so close to the sub 19.00 I'm sure they're capable of!! lol)...not bad for a team fielding the mad midget cocker!! I was most pleased with Tealey this weekend because she actually ran for Gemma in the afternoon as I took over running Mac start dog (for some reason Gemma seemed to be asleep on the start this weekend!! lol). Although I did commit the cardinal start dog sin with Mac (getting two consecutive false starts)....TWICE!!! (oh the shame!). This is however, the first time Teal has run for someone else and she ran brilliantly all day (clever cocker!!). The Demon Pawz were top seed in Div 5 and didn't disappoint as they also won the division (yay!!) totally smashing their seed time by running 19.82!! This now gives us 3 sub 20.00 sec teams...fantastic!! I must also mention the help that we had from Steve and Bridget on the line for us, first class assistance as usual, and also Manda who was quickly volunteered to run Dottie in the afternoon, when Gemma had to leave for work, and did a brilliant job with a dog that isn't the easiest in the world to run that's for sure!!

The day was made complete by the phone call I received from Joy in the afternoon to say that Teal had won combined Grade 6/7 agility down at Trent Park so had got her last agilty win needed to go Grade 7 (Advanced)...absolutely chuffed to bits for Joy, Becca and Tealey...grade 7 before she's 3 years old...now that's not bad going is it? Well done girls!

It was a long and busy day but a very enjoyable one and we all left for home tired but very very happy and looking forward to next weekend with great anticipation. Keeping fingers crossed for a few dry days so that the Penny farm venue will be able to dry out in time for next weekend's tournament.

British Champs - Sunday

(scroll down and read Saturday's report first if you haven't already done so...)

Sunday morning we woke to damp grass but blue skies, sunshine and a brisk drying wind (hurray!). Again we had 2 divisions off before we were due to race which was nice. We were first in Division Seven with the Racers and a slightly altered line up on the last time they raced with Mac and Lexie swapping places back so Fi lost her psoition as start dog and we ran Mac - Frost - Faith - Teal. Mac always runs better first and it makes very little difference to Faith what position she runs in so it made more sense to move her back. Gemma ran Mac, Paul ran Frost, Alison ran Fi and I ran Teal (she will only run for me so I don't have much choice! lol)...Hazell (Tyne Tailwaggers) very kindly boxloaded for us and Sam (Rotherham Rockets) did our scribing while Steve (Dolphins) did the line and checked changeovers as usual (so 4 teams in one! lol)...this combination really seems to work well and despite being seeded 5th they finished 3rd with a new fastest time of 19.14secs...I am absolutely convinced this team will go sub 19.00 as Teal grows in confidence every time she runs and Frost's times were off his usual pace so there's def more to give there. I must also mention the Cool K9 Coats we picked up this weekend, Paul and Alison bought one and so did I, these do definitely seem to make a difference to the dogs that tend to suffer with the heat and tire more quickly so hopefully they will have proved a good investment.

Here's the Racers finding shade in the tent at the back of Ring B between races...



Teal and Mac sporting the new 'Cool Coats'




The moment finally arrived that everyone was waiting for...Division One of the British Championships...the ring was completely surrounded by spectators several people deep and the atmopshere was electric! I have never before felt nervous at a flyball tournament but we all were as we waited to go into the ring for our first race. I think it was at that moment that the immense achievement started to dawn on us...we were running in Div One at this huge national event only 5 weeks after forming our new team and running for the first time as Demon Dogz, there are only 5 of us in total and quite often only 4 of us at comps (as this weekend) and we've only trained 3 times in that period. It's really quite unbelieveable!!! I think the nerves were probably made worse by the presence of a BBC film crew from 'The One Show' who were following the top two seeded teams - Live Wires and High Flyers so all the racing was being filmed (eeek!!! Does my bum look big in this??? lol). The racing throughout the division was absolutely fantastic and both the High Flyers and Live Wires managed it hold it together and not blow it on lights with the Moltens running out of their skins to record some fantastic times. We pushed the Bassetts, Wires and Moltens teams close but were pipped in each race...we really didn't run well at all against the High Flyers and lost in 3 straight legs (of course, we told them we let them win because we like them so much lol) but beat the Hampshire Harriers with some good racing.

Demonz Vs Harriers....lining up for the only race we managed to win...



(pic by Sunnyside Photgraphy, sure John won't mind me borrowing it as I'm about to order lots more from the weekend! lol)

We knew we'd come 5th but we didn't care, it really was the taking part that counted and I wouldn't have missed it for the world! First place came down to a 3 way tie between Bassetts, Live Wires and High Flyers who had all run such similar times. It was going to be decided on the average of each teams 3 fastest times of the day so no-one would know the outcome 'til presentation (sure this will make great TV lol). The marquee was packed for presentation and the atmosphere was fantastic, everyone congratulating each other on their performances, it was just so friendly, just as flyball should be! The place totally errupted as the High Flyers we declared the British Champions, they had defeated the defending champions (Live Wires) into 2nd place...a very worthy and popular win I have to say. Sharon's face was just a picture and how she managed to keep it all together with that TV camera right up in her face I will never know!! lol

The piece on the Champs is due to go out on The One Show, BBC 1 at 7pm this Monday (25th August). I don't think we'll feature but the camerawoman did ask if she could place the camera in the puppy pen so they may make an appearance and she did place the camera on the floor at the back of the ring while we were running to capture Lexie's dramatic run out where I place a ball on the floor for her and she runs at it at 100mph...straight into the camera!! lol So maybe Lex will make an appearance too, who knows?

We did however break down on the M6 on the way home, lost all power in the outside lane of the M6 going through Birmigham, waited in the van for 2 hours on the hard shoulder for the AA to send someone to come and pick us up, then waited another hour at the local depot while they decided who was taking us home then swapped onto another vehicle at Stoke meaning we finally made it home at....3.30am!!! What a nightmare! Fortunately it turned out to be an electrical fault on the van that was fairly easily fixed (although quite pricey...eek!) so I picked it up last night and we should be 'good to go' for SKC this coming weekend. Phew!

All in all we had a brilliant weekend and already I can't wait for next year! (maybe without the breakdown on the way home next time!)

British Champs - Saturday

Venue - Holt Farm, Southam, Warwickshire

Well, what can I say about the British Championships?? We had an absolute blast! Great weather, great company, superb venue, lovely happy and relaxed throughout, first class racing and a real carnival atmosphere. in short it was FANTASTIC! Even my extremely irritating head cold/sore throat/tickly cough wasn't enough to dampen my spirits!

The Champs this year was the biggest ever and was held over 3 days, they ran the divisions in reverse order, slowest Friday and fastest Sunday so we weren't actually running 'til Saturday. Gem and I arrived Friday evening with Paul and Alison already there and set up. We had decided that since there was just the 4 of us, rather than taking the caravans down we would share a big team tent and it actually worked really well. I took a spag bol I'd made the night before and we had tea shortly after arriving then headed over to the big Marquee for the Quiz and Disco, it was so lovely to have everyone together from all over the country, dancing, singing and having a ball! I think we made it to bed about 2am and were up at 7am to get the dogs out and sorted before racing started at 8.30am...we did have a division off before Gem had to go run Keston for the Rotherham team in Div 10 then we were in straight afterwards in Div 9 with the Pawz (Pip, Drake, Dottie, Ethan and Spud)...I thought we'd get thrashed in this division as we were in on a seed time of 20.00secs, achieved with Faith and Teal in the team at Chilterns and the divisions were all very tight in seed times (that's what happens when you have 133 teams competing!) but the dogs ran really well and we did some decent times finishing up 4th. The Barkshire Bandits very kindly did our ring party in the morning session of division 8 so we only had to do the afternoon (of what seemed like the longest 7 team division ever!). We just had a lovely relaxing day with plenty of time to sit by the rings between divisions, watch the racing and have a natter. The 8 week old pups that came with us had lots and lots of attention and fussing, great for them to experience all the sights and sounds of a flyball tournament and be handled so much, particularly by all the kids on the circuit, it's always nice to get your pups used to 'dog savy' kids before they head off out into the big wide world ;)

Here's some pics of us just chilling out, spending some time with Steve and B's kids while they were busy racing...

Megan reading to Gemma...



Ben trying to kill me!! lol (aren't little boys lovely????)




Pollaidh doing what Pollaidh does...waiting for someone to throw her ball...



The pups getting more cuddles...




just soaking up the sights and sounds




Kes keeping watch...



Saturday was a big party night, we had a lovely meal of beef and stir fried veg in black bean sauce with noodles (see...camping food can be good!) with a nice bottle of red and then off to the marquee for more partying...then...back to our tent for...flaming Sambuca's!! (medicinal purposes of course...excellent for a sore throat...ha ha)...finally made it to bed about 3.30am listening to the torrential rain that was falling outside (oh dear!!)...what was tomorrow going to have in store?

Anglesey-Wirral Tour

We packed up the van and caravan and ALL the dogs (yes...all of them, including Kes and her 5 week old pups) and headed off over to Anglesey on Thursday evening after work arriving just after 10.30pm...thank god for Paul and Alison who had gone over the previous day and helped us get set up! We were all sat down for a few bevvies by 11.30 when 'Mr Leek' arrived (didn't I say he was banned from the Demon camp after Rotherham??? lol) but we all had a good old natter and hit the hay around 2.30am (well it was a day off after all). Friday we just had a relaxing day...walking the dogs and playing with the pups and waiting (and waiting and waiting) for Trish to arrive. The older pups (Orlaith, Eabha and Viggo) were allowed to come on one proper walk each day with the big dogs and they absolutely loved it! Eabha is a real speed demon and thoroughly enjoyed being able to race the big dogs (no way they were going to lose her...she's like a greyhound!), Viggo we discovered, is a total water babe and we struggled to keep him out of the river...he's already a very strong and accomplished swimmer and little Orlaith-bear...well...she just enjoyed pottering about with me...she is SO like Quinn!!

Saturday was the first day of competition; we had decided to have a bit of a switch round of dogs for Anglesey and swapped Pip and Dottie with each other so started the week running...

Demonz - Dylan, Bailey, Lexie, Mist
Racers - Mac, Frost, Pip, Drake
Pawz - Faith, Teal, Dottie, Ethan, Spud

we had some difficulty settling on the best running order for the Racers and tried swapping Pip first for a while but ended up with Mac going back start dog. These teams ran ok together, Faith just seems to be getting faster and faster over the 9" jumps and is now consistently running 4.5-4.6, putting her in the Pawz also seems to have fired Teal up (they aren't the best of friends and have a real healthy rivalry with each other!). The Demonz won div 2 on Saturday as everyone had expected they would (doesn't always work out like that though!) but only ran a fastest time of 17.95, it does mean we've now had a 1st place with all 3 teams over our first 3 tournaments :) Drake was a little erratic so although we ran a decent time of 19.66 in Div 4 with the Racers, we weren't consistent and ended up 5th....our first time out of the rosettes! The Pawz ran ok in div 9 on Monday but it was quite hot and Dottie certainly wasn't on best form, she didn't adjust to running over the 9" jumps as well as I thought she might, this team finished up 4th with a rather dissapointing time of 21.11...oh well!

Sunday evening Gem and I did some agility training at Ruth Hobday's (next door) with Nat and Orienne. Bailey was his usual fab self but I was very pleased with Fi who was focused and motivated throughout. She definitely seems to work better in a smaller group with less going on (attention span of a gnat!). It was nice to see Nat and Kai working too and of course Orienne with the lovely cocker Murph (son of Drake and Teal).

Tuesday was a day off flyball but they ran a 'Flygility' competition. Basically a short course of agiltiy equipment that ended with a flyball lane, the dogs ahd to complete the course, then the flyball lane and return back over the course again. They only had to carry the ball out of the flyball lane but Gem and I competed with Bailey and Fi who both brought the ball all the way back over the agility equipment too! Equipics were on hand taking photos and while they got some nice shots of Fi I just couldn't get my head round her being in full stretch over an agility jump with a tennis ball in her mouth so didn't buy any! lol Needless to say, Bailey won the Open Flygility (again!!) and Fi ran really well and was placed 4th in the Novice.

Mid-week saw the Pawz running again on Weds (just one day off in between for this lot), we ran the same line up and finished 1st (yippee!!) with a fastest time of 20.55. It was much coooler this day which seemed to suit the dogs better. The Racers ran Thursday, again in div 4 and with the same line up and finished 5th with a fastest time of 20.09 (rrrrubbish!! lol). The Demonz were running in Div 1 against some of the fastest teams in the country but the wet weather seemed to level the playing field with some very unexpected race results which saw consistency win out and we finished up in a very respectable 3rd place with a fastest time of 17.88. I have to add that Lexie had started to come down with some sort of bug and was not very well, I really wasn't too sure about running her at all but she seemed ok, was just totally exhausted at the end of the day.

Friday we packed up camp and moved to Eastham on the Wirral. We were packing up on the 3rd day of rain on Anglesey, trying to get as much as possible done between torrential showers and light drizzle, so were pleased to be heading towards the sunshine and blue skies further East. We got set up and walked over the road to the excellent little chinese takeaway that Gem and I discovered last year 'Swallow House', ordered a banquet and ate far far too much food!! Poor Paul was suffering from a pulled back (overdone it trying to lift caravans out of the mud back on Anglesey!) so was a bit miserable all evening (bless!). I think we all needed to let off some steam after the stresses of the day so we drank lots of cider, vodka and wine! lol Stayed up late (or is that early?) with some of the Dolphins (Trish was rather...erm...merry!! lol) and had a good evening to end our week long holiday.

Saturday we were up bright and early, we just had the Demonz running but were also running dogs for Sam and Andy in the Rotherham Runaways. This team consisted entirely of Sam and Andy's dogs which of course included 3 of their 'Brynings' in the form of Ollie, Keston and Barney. We won the division with a fantastic time of 19.11, not bad for only their second outing together! Last div of the day was Div 1, Sam boxloaded for us as Paul was still suffering with his back and we had a slightly altered Demonz lineup as Lexie still wasn't on top form so we moved Mac in to cover her... Dylan, Bailey, Mist, Mac. It was a very warm day at the end of a very long week and this seemed to take it's toll as Dylan started dropping his ball before crossing the line giving us light after light. We tried various different things...swapping him last, hiding his tug-toy, changing the running order...we did also wonder whether it was Mac putting him off but nothing made any difference and we lost all our morning races. Very frustrating. By the afternoon it had cooled off and Dylan came out and ran fine, when we thought back to other times he's done this it's always been the end of a long day or when it's very hot so have concluded that all the other things had no relevance and we're just going to have to work on keeping him cool and rested between races in future...silly boy!! We ended up 5th (out of the rosettes again!! lol) but ran a decent fastest time of 17.68 which was encouraging. We enjoyed the evening sunshine and had a team BBQ then hit the showers and off to bed for an early night!

Sunday morning arrived and while they were calling for our paperwork we were still having a little team conference about trying something new (oops...sorry Bridget!). I quite fancied trying a little experiment but it was going to be just that...we had no idea whether it would work so it was a gamble the whole team needed to be happy to take...after the previous day's racing I think we were all quite carefree and decided to give it a go so we moved Faith and Teal up into the Racers, swapping them with Pip and Drake, on the basis that Fi was running so much faster over 9" jumps and hopefully Frost and Lex would too that we could afford to run the slower height dog and still run a faster team. It all hinged on how Teal would run (you never quite know what mood she'll be in!). I have also been thinking that Ethan runs better over higher jumps and Pip, Dottie and Drake don't seem to change whether running 9 or 13" so the Pawz should be better off too.

Well...the Racers went in first and what do you know....it worked!! Faith went start dog with Alison (a position they both seem to have made their own now) followed by Frost and then Lexie...the 3 of them running around the mid 4 seconds and Teal going in last running mid 5's and the team were achieving consistent sub 19.50 times and finished up 2nd! Teal was really fired up, she seems to relish running with her arch-rival Faith and the noisy duo of Frost and Lex. The Pawz also ran really well in Div 7, fast and consistent times...20.49 was their fastest and they won the division too! I think both teams have more to give but we'll have to give some thought about what we do with Mac and Lex...swap them back or leave them where they are?

I also really enjoyed judging Div 2 on the Sunday, some excellent close racing in this division and really nice to see the Ramsey lot over from the Isle of Man too. Not sure about the ring party though (the ones in pink that is!! lol).

All in all we had a brilliant 10 days, good weather (most of the time!), great venues, great racing and great company! Can't wait for the British Championships in 2 weeks time!

Anglesey here we come...

Busy packing up the van and caravan for our little flyball tour of Angelsey and the Wirral. Really looking forward to our annual holiday, great to spend more time with the dogs away from home.

We're going to be competing at 3 tournaments over the next 10 days...racing Saturday, Monday, Weds, Thurs, Saturday and Sunday so have a few days off in between to go the beach and stuff.

The BFA seed listing is currently showing the Speed Demonz as joint 5th fastest team in the UK at the moment...not bad going for a team that's only run twice! If the seed list stays pretty much the same we should be running in Div One at the British Championships in 3 weeks time.

Also...Squirrel's mini tennis balls arrived yesterday so we'll start doing some training with her while we're away. She can pick up a full size tennis ball and likes to play with them but I've noticed that a lot of parsons and jrt's don't always take the ball cleanly from the box...I'm giving her no excuses!! I have noticed that she plays very much like a cat...dropping and pouncing on her toy a lot...I don't want that becoming a habit in flyball though!

Have uploaded some new pics of Kes's pups to the website; these will be the last pics before we go away but as they're coming with us we should have lots of new ones when we get back!

The Chilterns Show

We had a really fab time at the Chilterns Show. Big thanks to Penny and all the Barkshire Bandits for their warm welcome and hospitality over the weekend.

Gemma had to work, since it was all arranged so last minute so Paul, Alison, Trish and I travelled down Friday evening and stayed with Joy and Becca just outside Bicester making our journey to the show the following morning much more bearable. We had loads of help from our fellow competitors boxloading, on the line and taking down times and of course Steve who is rapidly becoming an honourary Demon! lol We were first in Div 3 with the Demon Racers, a slight change to the line up this week with Drake coming up from the 'Pawz' to replace Faith and Lexie swapping places with Mac in the 'Demonz' we hoped we might achieve some faster times with this line up and we did...having run 19.61 last weekend and 19.47 this week. More practice with this combination should hopefully yield some better times going forward. We only lost one race in this division but ended up on a 3 way tie with fastest times used to decide the positions and ended up 3rd but were more than happy with the way the dogs ran. We were really grateful to Kristian and Sharon from the High Flyers for their help boxloading and collecting the balls, Steve on the line checking changeovers and Linda from Northants for taking down our times. We then ran the Speed Demonz in Div 1, seeded 5th, we seriously expected to get our butts well and truly kicked! We had swapped Lexie with Mac this weekend; although the timing system on the line shows that they run very similar times, Mac runs best start dog and so does Dylan, we just felt the team would gel better with Lex in it and we were proved absolutely right when we ran 17.59!!! (with a 0.13 late start!) still half a second faster than last weekend and the fastest we've ever run before! This was the 3rd fastest time of the day and we did indeed end up 3rd in the division running consistently sub 18.00 secs all day....very very pleased with that performance! :)) Must mention Paul who did a fantastic job running Bailey, Steve on the line who was vital in us achieving our best changeovers, Linda from Northants taking down our times and Darren from 'FourPaws' who boxloaded brilliantly. Couldn't have done it without them all.

Sunday saw us back at the show as I was judging div 5 and we were running the Demon Pawz in div 4. I really enjoyed judging Div 5 which was a tightly fought affair with some very good teams and handlers (including our own Paul who was running a dog for Northants Falcons and did a fab job)...I was really impressed by the consistency of changeovers, particularly from the Bristol Ball-sitic Rockets (boy were they buttock clenchers??!! lol) as well as the number of rolling starts we had (where the start dog hits the line on the exact right spot so the clock keeps running)...great racing all round and well done to the eventual division winners 'Snatch and Grab'. I was particularly fortunate to have some excellent line and box judges, including a number doing the job for the first time who were really first class :)

The 'Pawz' was the team I expected us to struggle most with since we had taken the fastest dog (Drake) out and replaced him with Faith. It's fair to say Teal is also a little unpredictable and Ethan has his moments too (of which he had several! lol) Teal ran superbly all day, the routine of taking her up to the box and doing a runback every time we run seems to be just what she needs. Steve boxloaded this team for us too which I'm sure helped. Ethan continued to have 'blue lane moments' which is becoming rather frustrating...despite his natural left turn he's totally distracted by the other lane when he runs this side and insists on turning right and while he never runs as fast he also has a habit of running out, fortunately we have good old reliable Spud to bail us out when Eth has his silly head on! lol The nicest suprise of this team was Faith who, over the 9" hurdles, dropped more than 0.5sec and actually ran faster than Drake had last week! (the hurdle height doesn't seem to make any difference to him). We smashed our seed time and ran 20.00secs dead which is fantastic. My only worry is that this may land the Pawz and Racers in the same division on some occasions (eek!) with a little over 0.5sec separating their seed times, but really nice to find that swapping Faith and Drake has actually strengthened both teams, something that doesn't tend to happen very often. 3 seemed to be our number of the weekend with a 3rd with this team too!! We may have got 2nd if I hadn't had a few lights with Teal (and Alison hadn't fallen asleep on one leg with Spud lol) but hey....lights with Tealey...she was really 'up for it' so I'm not complaining!!

All in all a great weekend and well worth the long journey down to Buckinghamshire. The weather was nice the company was good and it was a lovely friendly and relaxed weekend all round.

p.s. during one of the 'intervals' (where the Bandits did a demo in the main show ring) we did some singles time trials in the flyball ring for fun and managed to clock Bailey at 3.95secs over the 9" hurdles!! Go that dog!

Off over to Anglesey this week for our 10 day team holiday that incorporates 3 flyball tournaments, am hoping to get some agility training in while over there too...will try to remember to take lots of pics!

Rotherham Pics...

Rotherham Flyball Pics...
a few snaps Alison's mum took of the Speed Demonz at Rotherham last weekend....
Mist...

Dylan...

Bailey...

Mac...

Go Demon Dogz!!

Well, as you may have guessed...my van did finally emerge from the garage on Friday in time to get packed up and head over to Rotherham, I arrived about 6pm and got set up (put my caravan awning up all by myself...impressed???!!! lol), Paul and Alison arrived about 8.30pm after being stuck in traffic on the M1 and Gemma arrived shortly after (Trish is in Malta so I had her dogs too!) so it was quite late by the time we sat down for our pizzas and we were all knackered. We tried out the new team kit that Steve and B and brought over for us and it's all v cool!! Our quiet evening in soon went out the window when we got invitied over to the club house bar for a 'quick pint' which quickly turned into 2 or 3 and then back to the caravan for (lots) more wine and before you could say 'black russian' I couldn't remember anything else except for waking up in the morning feeling VERY ill!! lol (I think Steve is now banned from the Demon camp...he seems to be a a very bad influence!)

In spite of my stinking hangover we did make it into the ring and had some really good racing. First in with the Demon Pawz in division 6 and then in div 3 with the Demon Racers, loads of help from Hazell and Rachel from Tyne and Crazies who boxloaded superbly for us and Steve and Bridget, our lovely Dolphin friends, who manned the line and took down our times. The 'Pawz' finished the day 2nd in div 6 with a fastest time of 20.67 which we were all really pleased with. Noteably Drake and Pip ran brilliantly and Spud came in for the last 2 races in place of Teal and the change from 9" to 13" hurdles hardly affected the times at all which was nice to see (Spudley was VERY excited too!! lol). Pip seems to have really improved in her fitness level over the last couple of months and the wider hole settings on the new box seem to suit her better too. The Racers WON div 3 (woo hoo!!) which was most unexpected; they ran a fastest time of 19.61, Frost and Lexie were fantastic all day but Dottie seemed a little off form, Fi was just Fi...in a little world of her own most of the time! The weather was very kind to us all day and although occasionally overcast it stayed dry, by presentation I was (thankfully) fully recovered and it was lovely to receive Dylan and Faith's Intermediate certificates together, we also got lots of free Vitalin dog food for winning a div, courtesy of the Rotherham team sponsors which was nice. Had a yummy indian meal for tea but wisely we all had an early night!

Sunday we woke up (bright eyed and bushy tailed! lol) to beautiful sunshine...hurray! We didn't have anything on the first 2 divs but did end up helping a few friends out in the ring and then ring partied for div 2. We were bottom seed in div 1 with the Speed Demonz so decided to just go in and have fun and see what was what but amazingly...we won a couple of races and came 4th! :) Steve, Bridget, Hazell, Rachel and Faye were all on hand again to help us out boxloading and on the line/scribing etc, very grateful to them all. We tried a few different running orders and managed a fastest time of 18.09 but I know these dogs are capable of running faster so that's something to aim for next week. Oh...yes...we will be running again next week although we hadn't planned to! Somehow or other we managed to be persuaded to take the 3 teams down to the Chilterns Show in Buckinghamshire next weekend...with several teams having had to withdraw over the week we're going to make up the numbers but I'm actually really looking forward to it. We don't venture down south very often so it'll be nice to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones too! (We're going to have to since we won't have a box loader or 'linesman' again! lol)

All in all we had a lovely weekend and the Rotherham lot did a really fantastic job on their first ever tournament...great venue, superbly organised but friendly and laid back with it. Can't wait for the next one!

Another fruitful evening...

Had our first training session on the new box (it's not looking quite as pristine any more lol) and things are starting to come together. Well, we didn't have any dogs running out this week (just as well since we don't have any wings! lol) and we didn't get any ball fumbling either; they all seem to be making their own little adjustments to their approach and turn with each run so I think it's going to be more a case of repitition running on it rather than any sort of specific box training that will be key. The combinations we decided on at last weeks training seem to be working well. We may look at altering the ’Demonz’ running order going forward, it's just a case of seeing what works best...'suck it and see' so to speak! lol I was a bit concerned about the the ’Pawz’, with Pip running first dog and Ethan needing to go last (for the time being anyway...we WILL train him out of being an arse-ender!!) it left Drake and Teal running 2nd and 3rd and having to pass each other, not a prospect I was looking forward to considering how much they adore each other and how giddy they both get (I was imagining the cocker circus 'wall of death' as they chased each round the flyball arena...eeek! lol). Much to my amazement they passed without so much as a glance at each other, really nice consistent tight changeovers again and again! They seem to be really happy to be running with each other and their other buddies and were both very keen and excited so I really hope they carry that enthusiasm and confidence over into competition too. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. The ’Racers’ ran nicely, just a case of tweaking changeovers although we did think about re-naming that team 'Demon Bimboz' as they're all so flippin' dippy! All in all a pleasing training session and with a pint and a natter in the pub afterwards...who could want more?!

Taking Faith and Bailey agility training this evening so hopefully they'll both behave themselves. Am hoping to run Bailey at SKC next month but it's going to be some time yet before Fi is ready.

Another busy weekend...

On Saturday Gemma and I headed down to Oxford to visit Joy and Becca and pick up the flyball jumps and training shoot we had loaned them. We got there early evening and did a bit of agility training too with Faith, Wren and Bailey. Bai did really well so may be entered for a couple of shows over the next couple of months. Poor Fi is suffering from the lack of time I’ve put in with her recently and we’ve missed 3 weeks of agility training at Hest Bank with one thing and another but she was happy and motivated (she just loves training with Wren!) so I was pleased about that at least. We’ll be back at Hest Bank this Thursday and hopefully the field at home will be cut soon so I can put the jumps and training weaves back on and do something with them!!

Sunday morning Gem and I headed over to Daventry to watch some of the flyball racing, catch up with some of our flyballing friends we haven’t seen for ages AND….collect our new flyball box!! Here it is…isn’t it totally lush!! Lol

(are all these pics a little bit sad??)

Although this is technically the same style of box we have been running on, a ‘boomerang box’…it’s very different from the Modern Dog Sports (Alvah) box the dogs have been used to running on. For starters it’s much lighter weight (and much easier to lug about!), it has a finer trigger so only needs to be touched to release the ball rather than hit with some force, slightly less curve on the front and a different sort of rubber surface which should allow for a much more grip (especially when wet) and the holes are set much further apart (12 inches) to aide a good swimmers turn. I’m hoping that it should quicken up some of our dogs turns; we’ll have to do some work with the training shoot for those dogs that don’t currently get all 4 feet on the box at the moment (Pip, Ethan and Teal). Looking forward to getting some more training underway, lots of work to do and our first comp in 2 weeks time…yikes!
Got home very late last night (early this morning!) as we did more agility training after tea until it got dark and then ran into some congestion on the M6 following a nasty accident (not literally of course!) but had a really nice time with Joy and Becca as always, just nice to relax with friends and have a good laugh…which we did…a lot! lol