Demon Dogz Tour!!

Phew!! Well, a hell of a lot to catch up on from the last couple of weeks!

16 days, 16 dogs, 8 days of racing, 4 people, 3 tournaments, 2 countries = one hell of a blast!!

We headed off down to Godmanchester on Friday evening for the Cambridgeshire Canines tournament at Wood Green Animal Shelter and had 3 days of glorious weather and first class company.

We just had the starter team running on Saturday and I was judging div 4. Kerena and Jordan joined us with the Cocker Circus who performed brilliantly and we eneded up with 2nd place, with no thanks whatsoever to Squirrel who consistenly dropped her ball and ended upon being sent back to the van in shame! Arrgghhh...infuriating bloody terrier...she nearly got left on the doorstep of the shelter when we left for Belgium! lol
Here's Jordan with Magic and his mum and dad...Teal and Drake...

On Sunday we had both teams running, the Racers in Div 1 and the Pawz in div 3. We ran Teal in the Racers to see what the other dogs would do over the 8" and left Mac in the Pawz as he hasn't been running that well at the last few comps but of course...he consistenly ran 4.5 - 4.6 all day! I was seriously regretting having named him in the Pawz on the Belgium team sheets too! Neither team did particularly well, Teal wasn't running great (the cockers really don't like the heat) and we ended up running Faith in the Racers who, I have to say ran really well at her first comp back from the pups. On Monday we were supposed to be running starters with the Racing Hearts who rang Ellen at the very last minute to say they weren't coming leaving the running order 3 multibreed teams short! Between ourselves and Aplhas we managed to cobble together a multibreed team and 2 NFC teams to fill the spaces and actually had a really good day.

Vicki also came over on Monday to run starters with Pippa and she also picked up Dora and looked after her for me for the week we were in Belgium which was really really kind because she's just at that age where I didn't want to leave her home with my mum for that length of time where she'd be going nowhere and doing nothing. Now, I was a bit embarrased by how little I have taught Dora...Diesel could do SO much at the same age and everyoen kept winding me up about it and Vicki too it seems!! lol Looks as though Dora had a very busy and enjoyable holiday too with lots of pics and updates on Vicki's Blog.

Here's a few pics Vicki took at Wood Green...Teal and Drake competing in the multibreed...


Mac and Dottie running in the NFC team...


(these pics are copyrighted to Giruff)

We packed up on Monday afternoon and set off after presentation to take the caravans up to Littleport where the Leisure Centre manager had kindly offered to let us leave them for the week we were in Belgium. This took us a little longer than we had anticipated, for reasons I won't go into (Gemma!!) but we made it down to Dover for our 1am ferry and landed in Calais and drove up to Merchtem where we were staying in Anne's house while she was away in Sweden. Anne is my good friend from Doggone Borders who kindly offered us her home, we just had to work round the decorators! We had a nice couple of days at Ann's just enjoying the local town and restaurants and heading over to Oostende one day to meet up with Wendy and her dogs on the beach. We also took Dino to meet his new family, he was really good and is settling in really well.

Thursday we headed over to Beerzel for the Euros and the weather was still beautiful. Despite being left off the camping plan (along with several other teams!) we managed to squeeze in on the Dolphins pitch which was right by ring 1 where we were doing all our racing and I was judging.

Gemma and I attended a judges briefing on Thursday evening to get our heads round the different racing format and rules. They really did look after the judges with us all receiving a goody bag, free t-shirt and free breakfast and lunch laid on each day along with a 10 euro money card to spend on site too, I spent nothing for 3 days! So we were all set for our first day of European flyball racing the following morning...of course...the Pawz were running in race 1, ring 1 and running back for the first leg I managed to break my toe!! Teach me to run in bare feet! lol just typical!

They run 2 different types of first round competition and we had a team running each so, Demon Pawz were running on a standard 7 team round robin format that we're used to, only difference is that this is run on best of 3 legs. Demon Racers were running on speed trials in an 8 team div. This bascially involves the teams being drawn randomly to 'race' against each other in 4 races only you're not really racing, you're just running 4 legs to get a fastest time. This is quite tactical and is one of the reasons I think the Belgians run such fast times...on this system you can keep pushing changeovers without worrying about lights since 'losing' a leg really doesn't matter. Once you have a good time though you can run a much slower dog in the remaining races and rest your faster dogs for the double elimination stage. Unfortunately not a luxury we had! lol We did at least get to swap the named dogs and put Mac back in the first team which paid off as we ran much better times. We kept Faith on the Racers team sheet but ony let her run the odd leg, I was pleased with her times though (around 4.7) as she's just come back running and is doing 13" for the first time. She's still not as fast as Dottie though who is currently running around 4.5 but if we can get her back to her fitness and times from last season she may earn her place in the Demonz when we have Dylan back running later in the year.

Some pics taken by Tania...
The venue...

Ring 2...

Demon Dogz tour kit...

Pawz lining up...

Pip on the box and Genna our FABULOUS boxloader!!


Friday night we enjoyed the free sangria post-racing and never actually made it back to our tent, we just stayed in the marquee and drank belgian beer and ate our dinner and then drank more belgian beer and wine and sambuca and enjoyed the disco and danced and chatted and ended up being thrown out at 3am! lol I have to say...we were all 'vair vair drunk' and it's a bloody wonder we were up so bright eyed and bushy tailed to be in the ring for the first race of the day...again!

We completed the first stage racing by lunch time and the final positions in the round robin/speed trials are then used to seed everyone and decides where you go in the double elimination draw on the final days racing. We really didn't play the submitted seed times game very well (break out time is 1 sec faster than the top seed time in the division so you have much more leeway than we're used to under BFA rules) with either team so struggled in both divisions but consistency won out and we won the round robin with the Pawz in Div 6 which gave us a bye in the first round of the double eliminations. Unfortunately we lost our first race against a much slower team because they had a big mean Belgian Shepherd that eyeballed everything and was enough to worry Ethan into running out...the little swine! Of course this was our 4 dog team, I was wishing I'd taken Spud 'super sub'! lol We won one double elimination with the Racers but lost the second to get knocked out.

Ann arrived back from Sweden and came over on Sunday and took this video of the Racers final race which is nice for her since she has a Mac son and a Lexie daughter.
The first leg with Faith running...

third leg with Dottie now running last dog...


We all really enjoyed the racing, the help and support amongst the British teams was fantastic, we had Genna boxloading for us with Rachel, Becca, Sharon and Kristian sharing line and dog holding duties. We all tried to watch each others races and cheer each other on as much as possible. I also really enjoyed judging division 4, there was some fantatsic racing in this 8 team speed trial division which featured 2 british teams...Fylde Coasters and Hinckley Hooligans who both ran brilliantly. But the worthy division winners were the Carinthian Flyball Team from South Austria who who had text book starts and changeovers and one of the best parson russell's I have ever seen running!

Me judging div 4 with the 'pink pirates' from the Czech republic in the background (pic by Mark Laros - Jumpers Flyball Team)


So presentation came on Sunday evening, the marquee was packed with most of the British teams sat on the trestle tables down at the front...I think this is the longest presentation I have ever been to (yes...even longer than the British Champs! lol) with awards presented first to all the round robin/speed trial winners and then the overall 1st to 3rd placed teams in each division. Now...the moment of the whole tournament has to be when I went up to receive the trophy for the Pawz winning the round robin of Div 6. Firstly, Stefan had just explained how these were very special hand made ceramic plaques from a avery talented local artist that had taken 3 weeks to make (I think you can see where this is heading), then he introduced a representative from Purina to present these awards as ProPlan were sponsoring the event. So....I go up to receive the award , the Purina guy hands it to me and I turn around...the bloody plaque falls off the wooden plinth and smashes to pieces all over the stage...in front of around 400 people...I was mortified!! There was a collective intake of 400 breaths followed by a complete roar of laughter and I just could not stop laughing, the poor guy from Purina is on his knees picking the pieces up and putting his arm around me reassuring me that he's sure they'll be able to find another one!! lol Of course...Mr Clarke and his 'ever ready' camera were on hand to capture the moment...thanks John! lol

This pic is now on the EFC 2009 homepage so I'm famous! lol

I then ended up picking up the pieces and returning to my bench while the entire GB contingent then proceeded to shout 'Hold it, Hold it, Hold it...'(only flyballers will get this joke lol), at least everyone in the team got a piece of the award! hahaha

At the end of these presentations Stefan called again...'Natalie from Demon Dogz...we're giving you one last chance'....they DID have a spare after all! lol...I sent Gemma to collect it...chicken...ha ha

Here's the Pawz posing with their trophy the next day...

(I'm taking these photos, hence not being in them!)
and here's some pics John took of this team over the weekend...

Here's the Racers with their medals...

Here's all the dogs that competed over the 3 days...

and here's the 'cheerleaders', the dogs that came but didn't race (Squirrel, Spark, viggo and Dylan)


to be continued...

sorry, I got tired of typing last night and left our tour report half done!

I've added the vids to yesterdays instalment!

Anyways...we had a brilliant time at the Euros, we got to meet up with lots of doggy relatives too. Tania came over on Saturday and brought Boyken and Mieken...the two merle puppies she kept from the litter she had when she came over to use Spark

Here he is posing with his Belgian kids...

(I really don't know why he's pulling that face or why he looks so small! lol)

Ann also brought Echo, Bryning Leap in the Dark (a Mac son) and Spice, Bryning Supersonic (a Lexie daughter) to watch the racing and one of Echo's sons, Ty was also there with a member of the Black Brains team so we got a piccie of the 3 generations of handsome boys together...

We also raced againt the team from the Czech Republic, Hop Trop Prague so Dottie got to race against her half sister, a lovely little ee red bitch, Nice of You to Comebye Simply Sarah who is also a Bond daughter.

We stayed on site on Sunday evening and just had a quiet drink in the bar with some of the Jumpers team and then packed up leisurely on Monday morning and waved off most of our fellow British compeitiors who were heading straight back home. We headed over to Ann's and left all the dogs at her house as she took is into Brussels for lunch and an afternoon mooching around the market and shopping which was really nice. When we got back to Merchtem there was some sort of street parade (it was a bank holiday) with a huge gaggle of stilt walkers (some of them REALLY high) and a band and kids with bunches of flowers and stuff like that. We messed about with the dogs and then had chinese takeaway and an early(ish) night so we could pack up and go (beer) shopping before heading down to Calais for the 12.30pm ferry. We had a good sailing back but Gem and I got stopped for an hour in Dover while they checked all our dogs passports because we hadn't booked them all in correctly in Calais apparently...what a bloody nuisance! We then got held up on the M11 due to a vehicle fire and finally made it back up to Littleport to retrieve our caravans and setup camp for about 6pm...hot, tired and a little frazzled!

We basically just spent a couple of days chilling out, the venue at Littleport is fantastic so the dogs had a lot of freedom just pottering around the playing fields outside the caravans and going for nice long blasty runs, something they'd missed while we were away. The Flyers started to arrive on Thursday afternoon and on Friday Sharon and I measured out the racing lanes for the weekends competition and we all just mooched about setting up, it was all very laid back and enjoyable actually. We did some training with Viggo in the ring on Friday evening and he actually wasn't too bad (for Viggo!)...doing full runs with other dogs in the ring and lots of people about...lots of distraction! We decided to name him on the team sheet with the Rotherham starters so he could share a spot with Squirrel since we had no idea what she would do either!

Saturday morning came and the starters were first in and amazingly...Viggo did it!! (bless him) I also had an 'hallelujah moment' and cured Squirrels ball dropping! I realised that she spat her ball the moment I called her back so all I did was stop calling her...hey presto..cured! Although, it is actually really hard to remember not to call your dog back!

Here she is on her way to the box...somehow me thinks she probably doesn't need the 8" jumps she's been measured at! lol


The Pawz ran after that, another new combination because Teal had come in season so we ran Faith and, I have to say, they were all paw perfect and went on to win their division with another new seed time of 19.72. Faith was running 4.6's so she IS getting quicker over the higher jumps...fingers crossed!

Here's some piccies of Drakester from John Clarke (Sunnyside Photography)...



We had a late one on Saturday to seal off our tour...working our way through Paul's Vodka cocktail book but Alison and I settled on the White Russians and, since I was measuring (and not Paul) we managed to get nicely inebriated but not incapaciated! We also managed to keep Dave Long out way past his bedtime too! lol

Sunday morning was rather damp...the first rain of our tour so can't really complain but we ended up running the Racers in waterproofs and wellies and the dogs did suffer with the slippy ground, Mac went from his consistent 4.6 times to running 4.8's and Dottie just kept sliding right up the box front...more boxwork required with her me thinks but we did manage a new (BFA) fastest time with this lot of 18.45 (we had run 18.28 in Belgium) and went on to win that division too...a fantastic way to end our flyball journey! I am sure we can get these four dogs sub 18 with consistent running to we'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

I arrived home about 10.30pm and all my doggies were very pleased to see me. Hardly recognised Mouse and Monkee...they've changed so much!! Will get new piccies this week so you can see. And that's it...back home, back to work...boo hoo hoo. We're at Rotherham this weekend and have a starter team entered so will attempt to run Spud, Radley, Squirrel and Viggo in the same team (I say 'attempt') and see how they all get on!