August Flyball

For some bizarre reason I thought it would be a good idea for us to enter a flyball tournament every weekend in August (which also happens to be a 5 week month) but not content with just that we would include two weekends that involved 2 sanctioned tournaments i.e. 7 sanctioned tournaments in a single month…nuts I know!

We started at Eastham on the Wirral over the 31st July/1st August weekend. I don’t entirely remember what happened that weekend but the Pawz and Racers ran really well and got new seed times and the Demonz ran really rubbish! To be fair, everyone in our division (div 2) ran really slow and I am pretty convinced that the ring was ‘out’ making the runs longer than they should have been…our other two teams ran in the other ring which ran really well (possibly a little on the short side??).

The following weekend we took the long trek up to Dundee for two 1-day sanctioned tournaments held at Caird Park and Camperdown Park (fab venue). We ran ‘scratch’ teams since Gemma couldn’t make it so Mac replaced Bailey in the Demonz and we mixed the other two teams together on a submitted time. The dogs actually ran really well and we ran some good times plus we ran Travis and Maisie in the starters and they were both fab! After chatting to my friend Hazell (Tyne flyball teams) on the Saturday night about the problem she had running her two dogs (River – Bryning Super Cool and Jack – Bryning Bold Jack Donohoe) in their top team we decided she would move River into our team so she could run them both herself and get the best out of them. So the next day River ran with us which was really nice since Lexie ended up running with 3 of her kids (Dylan, Faith and River); this also did the trick for Tyne who ran sub 18.00 seconds for the first time when Hazell ran Jack herself! We had a really nice weekend, good company and good flyball…very enjoyable and worth the long drive.

Hear No, See No, Speak No… lol
Maisie, Mouse and Spark enjoy the wide open spaces of Camperdown Park

A rare pic of Tarka at 11 months old, she’s usually just a blur!


’HERE’s’ some more pics I took at Camperdown Park, none of the flyball I’m afraid!

The following weekend we were at the British Flyball championships, I couldn’t make the Friday and the Pawz really did struggle and came last in their division…oh well! The Racers were running Saturday with a new line up since we had moved Teal and Faith down out of the Demonz and moved Lexie up to join her daughter River in the team. Faith is considerably faster than Lex over 8” but not over 13” so she moved down with the height dog (Teal). The weather was horrendous…torrential rain meant the conditions were awful so despite them running some good times and winning all their races in the morning, it all went belly up in the afternoon with the dogs sliding all over the place and really struggling on the box; the times suffered and we ended up losing races, a real shame. Mac suffered the most, I could see him twisting off the box as he struggled for grip and sure enough he was very stiff that evening so had a massage and slept in his coat to keep his poor aching back muscles warm, bless him. We had a team BBQ in the rain on Saturday evening (true British spirit!) and all really enjoyed the fancy dress party and disco in the marquee…we all went dressed as Demons! Haha

The Demonz were running Sunday in Division 5, this was a real learning curve since this was a completely untried team of Dylan, Bailey, Lexie and River, we lost all our morning races while we all got a feel for changeovers etc but got it together for the afternoon and actually beat the two fastest teams in the division thus handing the division win to our old friends at Red Rose who were running an entire Bryning team in the form of Aztec (Bryning Aztec), Harry (Bryning Silver Harrier), Haze (Bryning Indian Summer) and Oz (Bryning Willie Wagtail)…very proud of the babies :o). It does just go to show the way flyball goes though, the two teams we beat ran fastest times of 17.60 and 17.62, we ran a fastest time of 17.85 (seasons best) and the Red Rose Rascals won the division with a fastest time 18.18! lol

There are some pics of the Pawz and Demonz ’HERE’
(kindly taken by David Flood)

A couple of my faves...
Ethan…on a mission!

Lexie…

And daughter River…


The following weekend we were over at Rotherham for the tournament hosted by our friends at Tyne. We were top seed with all 3 open teams which is always the kiss of death! True to form we didn’t win a single division! Well, apart from starters actually where we were joined by Beamer (a BC bred by my friend Julie) who was making his tournament debut and ran really well; along with Spud, Travis and Maisie they managed to win the division with the fastest time of the day…clever babies :o)

Spud - 10 years old and rather arthritic, he’s retired from competing but makes the odd appearance in starters when we need a ‘steady hand’ ;o)

Travis

Maisie

Beamer

There are more pics of this team ’HERE’
(thanks to Kirsty Price for the photos)

Again we struggled with the Pawz, Radley seems to be struggling for confidence at the moment and Fynn is struggling to concentrate for a whole division but I was a particularly pleased with Squirrel who ran her little socks off :o) We actually managed a 2nd with this lot and a fastest time of 22.17

The Racers ran ok, Mac was a little off form since he’d has an abscess on his foot so wasn’t quite 100% and I really struggled with my changeovers in on Dottie who is becoming increasingly erratic off the box, lots of lights, very frustrating!

The Demonz ran Sunday and again we seemed to struggle for consistency, throwing away easy wins on stupid lights…tsk! Hoping for better results this weekend coming at Drax!

the joy of puppies! :)

Well, not a lot happening in the last couple of weeks. We had a couple of birthdays…Faith and Dylan turned 3 (which meant it was also my brother and sister-in-laws wedding anniversary and I still managed to forget!) and Spud turned 9.

Spud is my little choc tri working sheepdog, he’s a very funny character and was like an old man from the day I brought him home at 6 weeks old so I guess he is gradually ageing into himself. He was diagnosed with an additional and malformed vertebra in his spine as a puppy and with arthritis in his elbows and then his wrists a few years later so he’s always been a bit ‘special’ and limited in what he could. He took what felt like an eternity to train but turned out to be not a bad little obedience dog and was a pretty good little flyball dog in his youth too; still running sub 5 secs up ‘til last season and having the occasional run out in starters this year but he’s slowed dramatically in the last 18 months so I took the decision to retire him completely. He had his last run out in starters at Rotherham back in July and hasn’t run since. He is however still playing a very active role at home as ‘Nanny Spud’…I wouldn’t like to guess the number of pups he has played Nanny to over the past 9 years, he is supremely patient with all our litters and the pups we’ve brought in, he’s playful and caring with them but a good gentle disciplinarian too. Everyone loves Spud and he is greeted every morning by an excited flurry of frantic licks by all the girls and youngsters which he patiently puts up with (bless him).

Last weekend also saw visits from Susan Owen and her husband who have Mouse’s litter brother Jeep, they were over visiting the UK from their home in Oklahoma, we spent a lovely hour or so with them being harassed by Mouse, Faith and granny Lexie for fusses and cuddles….what a soppy lot! Gemma also came up to collect Fynn …hurrah…peace and quiet at last!! lol He is of course quiet and lovely now he’s gone there! More time and attention is all he needed and now he has it which is great. We snapped a few pics of Faith, Lex, Ethan and (a very pregnant looking) Dottie too for a friend who has written an article featuring show bred dogs that are competing successfully in flyball and wanted a pic of the four of them to go with it. Why is it you can’t ever get a pic with everyone looking good at the same time?? These are the best three from the 44 we took in total!! (don’t you just love digital cameras?!)



Sunday Gem and I travelled down to Mansfield to bring the cocker puppies home, we spent a nice hour or so with Julie (Trevellis Border Collies) before loading the babies up and bringing them all back up here. James and Keeley (and of course Maizy) have done a great job, 5 happy, outgoing little monsters! They were 6 weeks old on Monday and I’d forgotten quite how mental 6 week old cocker puppies are! Here’s their first foray out into the garden at our house…

Cocker pups at 6 weeks old
They start to leave this weekend so we only have a week of them all together. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad about that?? lol Although I had decided not to keep one of these after getting Travis (their half brother), I weakened and we’re keeping Tarka, Bryning Riverine…she’s bonkers!! (reminds me so much of grandad Drake!!)

‘Brock’ is still to find his perfect home, he’s going to be a very unusual dog, it doesn’t look as though he’s going to roan up so he will likely remain open marked white and black with light flecking and tan points…this is pretty rare (well I’ve never seen one before!).

This weekend we’re at Rotherham on Saturday, competing in what will likely be our last tournament of the year and at NWBCC Champ show on Sunday which is really local to us (great!). I will also start preparing the whelping pen in my bedroom in preparation for Dottie who is due next week (to her first mating)…fingers crossed all goes well with that, she’s quite big and very unhappy and restless already (I’m not getting much sleep with her night time fidgeting!). I’m still not sure about Dazzle ; I think she probably is in whelp but she’s very good at hiding it (like her mother before her!); Lexie is definitely in whelp though and starting to show quite clearly, her more slender frame and considerably less coat make it impossible for her to hide!

Quiet Weekend...

Saturday I was supposed to be at the Agility Addicts show with Faith but after a week of bad sinuses and migraines I had a feeling I wouldn’t make it and I didn’t. I just didn’t feel up to the 2 hour drive and long day when I woke up on Saturday morning so just let the dogs out and went back to bed. I had quite a lazy day (haven’t had one of those for ages!) and just pottered about and did a few things at home, it wasn’t ‘til about 5pm that the headache finally shifted :(

I really wish we’d been able to go but nevermind, such is life. We spent a bit of time training directional commands instead. I did get a text from Sally though to say she’d been to a local unaffiliated show with Digger and he’d won both the Beginners Jumping and Agility…well done Sally and ‘Digs’! :)

Sunday we went down to the Wirral to meet up with the Dolphins where Tom and Kate were having a ‘mass’ blood drawing session for titre testing all the dogs that had been rabies vaccinated over the last month or so in preparation for getting them all passported for the Europeans in May. I think there were around 80 dogs to be done in total…quite an undertaking in the middle of a field! All went well and they worked so hard to get them all done, they must have been exhausted at the end of it though!

We also took the time to do some training with the ‘Demonz’ and the new dogs we’re bringing on…Sea, Squirrel, Kitten and Haze and Storm had his first runs back following his cruciate repair at the beginning of the year. We didn’t leave the training ground ‘til gone 4 o’clock when we all went to the local pub with Steve, Bridget and the kids for a ‘late lunch’ lol…the food and company was excellent and we didn’t get home ‘til after 8.30pm.

Some short videos from training…

Squirrel…looking very promising doing full runs on a training shoot.
Storm doing his first run back from his cruciate rupture injury…he’s never run on this style of box before so has a little fumble but is looking very promising for a full comeback in the New Year.
Sea doing a runback…his training has started really well.



Not much else to report really except that it is Spud's birthday today...Happy Birthday Spudley-Doo!! :)