What an awesomely amazing flyball weekend!
Our club took 4 teams to the tournament in Sandusky this weekend. Pan was running one full time spot and sharing a spot on a second team, while Trophy was running full time on one team and was a backup on a second (he when in one race for 5 heats on his backup team).
I could not be more proud of their performances this weekend, not only did both dogs earn their FDCh-G titles (2,500points), but both dogs put up amazing personal best team times. Pan with a 4.4 seconds over 11 inch jumps, and Trophy with a 4.9. Trophy even started one race, but i forgot to look at what his line-to-line times were, so I'll let you know once I hear back.
The most exciting news was that not only did Trophy run a 4.9 once, but that he was running consistent 5.0-5.2s. WHY? BECAUSE HE WAS FINALLY PUTTING HIS REAR FEET ON THE BOX!!!!
Trophy has shaved 1.5 seconds off his time since he debuted last July, and half a second was just from learning to push off the box! YAY!
I also got him to tug a little bit out in the lanes!
I started the weekend having completely forgotten how to pass. Our first few races saw me with either 10 foot passes, or with early passes. It did not help that the dog I passed with Trophy has an EXTREMELY wide turn off the box (so wide I seriously don't know how she finds the jumps again, but she does) so it took a lot of dialing in to get that pass, but I did it, gosh darn it! By the end of the weekend I was pretty consistently running 1 and 2 foot passes with the occasional wide pass (hey, I'm NOT perfect) with both dogs.
Pan has decided that she LOVES running second. She lines up next to our start dog and quietly stares that dog down. When the start dog takes off she scrambles to get into the lane and I frantically get her positioned just in time to let her go. She gets very angry when she has to run third, but the good thing is that if she runs second I'm no longer worried about her tearing me to pieces with her nails as at least she has learned to wait till the first dog goes before getting excited. I also was able to back her up a few feet to 43 feet back from the line after trying to cross over and slamming into Harley back at the NYE tournament when I had to move her up to 20 feet.
The weekend was HOT. A lot hotter than last Monday's forecast of 75 degrees would have us believe. I'm so thankful that the Kool Coats I ordered from Clean Run came in, they were lifesavers for my dogs, and Demo was nice enough to share his coat with Harley since Demo isn't running yet.
Speaking of Demo, I had him off leash playing ball and returning for a tug even with other dogs walking around all the racing noise from the building. Good boy!
*UPDATE*
Got confirmation of Trophy's time for the race he started, he ran a 4.8 second heat in start!!!!
4 heats in start:
5.094
4.885
5.160
4.941
WOW!! and I had a 4.9 and several 5.0 and 5.1s while passing, so my passes were tight! yippie!!
My goal was to get him to run under 5 seconds and I've done it!
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