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!