Ending on a High...

So…this weekend was our last outdoor comp of the season as a team and we headed over to Norfolk Heritage Park in Sheffield for the Steelers Flyball team debut tournament. We were running both teams on the Saturday since Gemma was working Sunday so it was another busy day for me being involved in all 4 divisions. Squirrel
and Radley ran in a combined starter team – Norfolk Mix and Match, 2 Demonz, 2 Steelers and 2 Water Orton dogs, this was a really nice mixed breed team with a collie, parson, cross breed, lab and 2 working cockers (the other cocker in the team turned out to be a cousin of Radley)…they ran brilliantly…I was SO proud of my babies and they won the division with a fastest time of 19.95 :) We each got a lovely rosette and memorial shield.

Next up were the Speed Demonz running in Division One, Brigg were top seeds with a time of 17.94, we were second seeds on 18.13 but since Brigg had to pull out at the last minute we were now the favourites by about half a second. Sometimes this sort of pressure is not good and we were still running the experimental team from Stoneleigh with Teal in as the height dog so I wasn’t sure how we were going to get on. I needn’t have worried , we ran the fastest time of the season in our first race with a 17.90 with Dylan, Bailey, Faith, Teal and then went on to run 17.91 with Dylan, Bailey, Lexie, Teal. Drew ran both Faith and Lexie and did a good job swapping between them both, although they seemed to be running similar times they do run quite differently with Lexie faster on the way in and Faith faster on the way out, this obviously affected both his changeover behind Bailey and mine in with Teal but we seemed to settle into the spot quickly and the team just seemed to ‘gel’. Teal really seems to have found her feet and is running better than she ever has, all the boxwork we’ve done over the summer, getting her to drive off faster is paying off and is making all the difference to her times…now we just need to work on her hurdling consistently! (she often puts an extra stride in between hurdles when he stride isn’t quite right, this is quite common for short legged dogs). It all went a bit ‘Pete Tong’ in the third race where, for some unknown reason, Teal was hitting the box and driving back off so fast that she completely forgot to catch the ball!! This is one of the dangers with teaching drive off the box, you are effectively moving the dogs’ main point of focus…i.e the reward isn’t in getting the ball but in getting back faster. You often find that the fastest flyball dogs are ball ‘spitters’ and it’s a common misconception that a good flyball dog has to be ball obsessed, I have actually found this to be the opposite. The ball really needs to be secondary to whatever the reward at the end of the runback is to get them to run as fast as they can. If you watch the REALLY fast American teams their dogs are all trained to a tuggy. Anyway, I digress…we took Teal out and ran all 4 collies, this wasn’t the fastest team you’re ever likely to see because they suddenly went from 8 to 13” and it did throw them all somewhat (especially Faith who struggles over this height) so the changeovers were atrocious but we did manage to win the following 3 legs and win the race. We went on to win both races in the afternoon too and Teal ran fine (thankfully) so obviously won the division…a lovely way to end the season and another collection of rosettes and shields  I am confident there is another 0.5 second in this combination of dogs so we will spend the winter training this combination and see what they can do! (although Teal is due to carry out maternal duties some time over this winter too!)

The Pawz ran next in Division 3, we had Mac, Pip, Drake and Ethan. They all ran ok and this was a very tight division so we ended up on a 3 way tie for 2nd and came 4th…bummer! Lol I think we ran around 19.70 which was better than last weekend but still not great. I think maybe some of the dogs are ready for a break.

I was judging the last div of the day, Div 5 which was ANOTHER 7 team division!! My back and legs were aching so much from being on my feet all day by the end of it! This was a really nice division and was won by Minster Monsters from York who were running a lurcher, GERMAN WIREHAIRED POINTERS and munsterlanders…lovely dogs to watch running!

It was a lovely show, fantastic venue, good ground and plenty of space with a café on site and a lovely friendly and relaxed atmosphere throughout, I really enjoyed it. Despite the forecast and the previous few days we didn’t have a drop of rain and in fact the sun came out! Everyone knows…the sun goes where the Demonz go! Lol We have been so fortunate this year to see very very little bad weather. Presentation was a really small and intimate gathering and it was really nice to receive Dotties’ gold award and Macs’ Platinum from Howard along with Paul getting Pips’ Gold too.

Lola is coming along nicely, I decided to make the most of the lovely venue and good weather to snap some pics of her….

Here’s one of Travis too, looking very serious!!

And one of him at home…pooped after his exhausting day out…

Other news this week…Viggo has mated Dazzle, I have hopes that he will be a great little stud dog on his performance because there was no messing around and he got on with it like an old pro! lol (granted, Dazzle is not a difficult bitch to mate). We should hopefully have blue/white and slate merle pups due around the 8th November…can’t wait!! (you can read more about planned/expected collie litters here btw)

I also heard from Kerena that the Dream Team qualified for the flyball at Crufts at the qualifier at Prestbury Park over the weekend which means that their young working cocker Magic, Bryning Makin’ Magic (a Drake-Teal son) will now be competing in both the YKC Agility Dog of the Year AND the flyball. I am so pleased with this litter and can’t wait to see Maizys’ pups growing up!