An early start on Monday to get to Sutton Fields for the flyball, we were bottom seeds in div 2 and 4 with the Racers and Pawz but top seed in div 1 with the Demonz. Joanna came over to pick up her pup Tarn (so that's 2 down and just one to go!), he's gone to the same team as his blue merle sister Misty so it will be lovely to see them growing up and hopefully running together in future. I finally made my mind up and Squirrel had her rabies vaccine, we will get her passported and she will come to Belgium with us next year too.
Noah, who would just not sit still for the camera!
Squirrel, showing off her new collar (yes, another one! lol)
Back to the flyball...what a terrible days racing we had...by far our worst ever! lol The most frutrating thing about the whole day was the Live Wires lights and timing system which, as far as I could tell, were completely up the spout! This turned what was already going to be a long days racing into a long drawn out and tedious day of racing with numerous intermittent delays of inactivity while they tried to sort the lights out...again!! Very very frustrating for both dogs and handlers. On top of all that our teams really weren't on form. The morning just turned into a non event, Pip seems to be carrying a muscle injury and was not her normal self at all, I found it very hard to get my passing right behind her with Drake because her striding was so erratic and she was way off her normal pace. Drake was running really well (the confidence building training seems to be paying off!) and Dottie and Eth were on good form too but we really did suffer from having an 'out of form' Pip and our times were right off. These things happen sometimes in flyball but we have positives to take from it too so that's the main thing. At least she has a good break now before we run again at Rotherham. The Racers did actually run ok although our times were a little off, not sure why because all 4 dogs felt in good form and seemed to be running well but all the hanging around certainly didn't help. The Demonz was just a nightmare, with all the time delays they didn't start running 'til after 1pm by which point it had got very hot, the dogs were already hot and bothered before they even got in the ring and Dylan was losing concentration and letting go of his ball before the line, we swapped him to last dog to help him focus which helped but always knocks his times down. It was 6pm before the second half of this division started, in was much cooler by this point which we hoped would help, we went in the ring againt the Molten Magnetics for the 2nd race in the afternoon's racing, swapped Dylan back to start dog and what happened?? Yep, you guessed it...the lights broke again!! They kept us hanging around in the ring while they fiddled with wires and swapped laptops and did this and that, THEN...someone started to let fireworks off close by...well, that was it, two of the Moltens dogs and Bailey were heading straight back to the cars terrified. We managed to get them back in the ring and got them wound up to race to distract them and keep them happy but...no chance of starting racing, the lights STILL weren't working, we were kept waiting in the ring for 25 minutes, both teams having requested to just get on with it and run on manual timing and lights. By the time we did re-start the 3 dogs that had reacted to the fireworks were totally stressed out, Bailey ran but his times dropped by around a second (so I got a light running Lexie in behind him) we had to swap him to run last, the poor Moltens couldn't get their dogs to complete, not what flyball racing should be about at all. We took the dogs onto the field and threw a ball and played with them to try and keep them all happy but when we walked back over to the ring for the last race of the day Bailey just legged it, right back past the ring to the cars and wouldn't come out...Gemma ran after him and I shouted her to leave him, no point stressing him any further so we just ran the 3 other dogs...by this time it was after 7pm and starting to go dark, what a complete farce! It was nearly 9pm by the time we got home (and we're only an hour away, some teams had 2-3 hours or more to travel!). I have to say, Live Wires tournaments are usually very well organised and we've had some fantastic shows this summer which is what made Sunday all the more dissapointing. It's days like this that make team captains think twice when deciding which shows they're going to enter in future.
Trish enjoying a.....'nice cup of tea'
Pip...in the car waiting to race.
On a good note, we did get Spark and Mouse mated when we got home, Tania will stay for a couple more days so hopefully we'll get a couple more matings before they head home to Belgium.
4 comments:
Those lights were an absolute nightmare weren't there?!
Poor Bailey, we were watching and wondered why you were down to just 3 dogs in the afternoon...Jet was very eager to come in the ring with you whilst watching :-S!!
Hope next weekend goes a bit better for you (if you are racing anywhere!).
You're not kidding! It just took all the enjoyment away...all that hanging around and trying to keep the dogs cool and settled.
We're not racing again now 'til Rotherham at the end of October but have a few training sessions planned so hopefully we'll have a better day there!
Harry has exactly the same expression as Pip does in that photo! Sorry to hear it was a pants days racing it's always a nightmare when the lights start messing up x
AW Noah looks so big!! I can't wait for Sunday! I hope he will adjust to his new home and not miss you and all the dogs too much!!
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