Gosh, I don't even know where to being on this weekend.
Tournament in Sandusky. Camped with my besties: Jbiz, Matty, and my sister. First day was nice, started out super humid but cooled by the afternoon and light sprinkles at the end of the day really helped cool things down... only after racing was done and Jbiz and I went to shower it started to DOWNPOUR. We had to walk through water above our ankles to get back to base camp. Then the path we all walked in teh grass to our tent turned into a mud slide. and water seeped between the tarp and the bottom of the tent.
We moved Tash and Pan into the back of the Vue for the night (it eventually stopped raining) and Matt took Demo into the bed of the truck. Jbiz and I kept the rest of the crated dogs in the tent because we both have cots to sleep on.
It was just... hell. My hell is not on fire, it's flooded and muddy.
We had to carry the dogs in and out of the tent to prevent them from getting mud every were.
And in the process I got a cut on my big toe by the nail that I believe is infected from walking thru the muck for two hours in bare feet.
Ok, now on to the dog's performances.
Had problems with the box on Friday and all the dogs bobbling. Slowed down the mechanism, and they did slightly better.
Starts with Pan were pretty good. Had some bad ones, but for the most part I kept it under .050 split. We did get our second perfect start today... but since I saw it and I screamed in celebration Matt (who was box loading) looked at the clock and didn't load a ball for Trophy... lost it on a no finish. oh silly greenie boxloaders. :)
Tasha got some pretty good starts with Pan today too when the lights started making more sense to her. As did Matt with Demo, although Demo started losing his concentration on the recalls and either couldn't find Matt or was blowing him off. Not sure which, but it concerns me.
Trophy was his awesomely consistent self, even if Jbiz couldn't get her passes together.
Cocoa debuted in Preflight and totally ROCKED it. It was pretty hilarious as we got her officially measured and the judge said he would give her 3 inch jumps if he could, lol! We started working thru her not bringing the ball back over all 4 jumps and not dropping early. Worked with another dog in the other lane (but not running at the same time, doing box turns while cocoa was running or alternating runs). Cocoa was slightly distracted, but quickly refocused. by the 4th preflight run today she was doing full runs and holding the ball all the way thru the end over 7inch jumps (we forgot to take them down to 6 and she'll have to jump 7 anyway for NAFA).
There were just enough wacky problems in the lanes, combined with severe pain today, a sun burn, crankiness from the flood, and sunburn today just sucked and for the first time ever I was really, really really glad to put this flyball weekend in the books.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
A Noob's Guide to Flyball: Chapter 1: From Fly Fishing to Perfect Starts, A Guest Blog by Matty
Note: while I try to keep the language of this blog pretty PG, in real life my friends and I swear like sailors. As this is written from the perspective of my friend, I have not edited language.
Introduction:
At Saturday's flyball practice my friend Matty, who has been running Demo for me at recent tournaments, said he is going to write a book about flyball and he has already picked the title. From Fly Fishing to Perfect Starts. This made me laugh as it is Matt's first two flyball tournaments in a nut shell.
In March I put out a call on my facebook page that I needed someone to run one of my dogs in a tournament in April because two of my dogs would need to be on the same team and I can't run two dogs at the same time. Matty, who had been to a tournament in Januray for a few hours said "That sounds like fun, I'll do it!" He made it to one practice, the week before the tournament, where he learned the basic mechanics of how flyball runs: releasing Demo, when to call him, how to catch him and get the hell out of the way of the other dogs.
His first race was... interesting. We were almost late and almost missed warmups. It was less than ideal, but we survived. Matt survived, and is now excelling at starting Demo.
As a semi-regular feature we will be sharing Matty's story. Which is the story of flyball from the perspective of a total noob. Flyball from the perspective of someone who was just about thrown into the ring blind. Someone who went from fly fishing with a tug, to having a perfect start in just two tournaments. Take it away Matty.
H'ok so, zees is muh story...
As Lex said, I knew the basics of how flyball runs, and let me stress this, I knew BASICS. I knew on which light I should let go of Demo, I knew roughly where I needed to run up to with the tug that Demo loves so much and I knew to run back and get the hell out of the way of everything else. So we go in and the warm up timer is counting down so we make a mad dash to the box to do run outs and and get that out of the way [Lexi's note: Just so you get the amount of pressure we were under, all three of my dogs ended up on the same team due to a last minute lineup change where one of our team members pulled her dog. I was coming off of an injury where a dog had bitten my hand and I had to fight off a huge infection, and I had JUST been cleared to full use of my hand the day before - it was still VERY sore. We had two green handlers, Matt running Demo and Jbiz running Trophy and I was running Pan. Jbiz had some more practice time under her belt, but we don't practice with as much runback as in a tournament so this was her first time doing actual passes... and we didn't have a practice run. We had just enough time for a run out, but not enough time for a full warm up run. AGAIN: We had a run out... and then game time. Talk about pressure, there was a lot of it riding on their shoulders. My account of this first tournament can be read here.]. An experienced flyballer would have known what was going on and that time is of the essence here. And there was moi, so being the noob that I was (am?), I just tried to keep up with everything. As anyone who isn't normally in these situations can attest to, having someone yell at you can be a bit startling so when they yelled "RUN!" at me it took me a second to process. but after a moment I kicked it into gear and away I went down the lane.
Now, there is something I was told after that first race. When I am being 'yelled' at, its not yelling per say. No one is necessarily mad at me and pissed off. They are yelling for a few reasons. Mainly its loud and people need to be heard so they have to yell. Also, they need to emphasize speed is of the essence and you need to move fast because I swear everything at a flyball tournament is on a timer.
So my very first race: there I am, lined up with Demo, kinda half squatted half crouched over, waiting for the the lights to start the count down. I believe I was somewhere around the 48' mark... or something close to that. The lights start and I see, one yellow.... "Demo readyyyyyy".... two yellow.... "Go!" and away he went, doing his thing. I take off after him doing as I was told. Running down towards the start line I pull the tug from around my neck, Demo gets the ball from the box and that's my cue. I swing the tug down on the ground and begin to run toward the back of the lane waiting for Demo to grab it. Now two things happened in the whopping 2 seconds from me swinging the tug to Demo grabbing it that I did wrong. First off, what I had thought was perfectly fine tug swinging mechanics, was actually a laughable imitation at fly fishing as the rest of the team described it. I got up to my position and (as I was told later) "gently tossed the tug up and out in an arc, then gently swung it down with a flourish and ran back".
It became quite the joke around our camp site for the weekend. Eventually I even got on board with it and said I just needed some glitter on the end of the tug to complete the look. That was the first thing I did wrong. The second was that as I ran back with the tug I pulled up on it as I anticipated Demo grabbing onto it. This little tiny action causes Demo to jump up and grab the tug higher up. Higher up in this case was my hand. I got a good chomp from Demo and thank goodness I had a glove on because even though Lex told me that if he managed to bite flesh he releases immediately, it hurt like a bitch. Didn't break the skin though, so I just suited up and got back in line for the second heat. I wasn't mad at Demo because that whole bit was my own fault and I knew going in that it could happen.
So I was one heat of my debut flyball race in and already I had been made fun of, and injured. Both of which I fully deserved.
Pausing for a moment to clarify, MY TUG MECHANICS DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT ANYMORE! The advise given to me from the all mighty flyball teacher known as Lex were to "take all your demons out on that floor" so I tried that. My mission was to beat the floor into submission and my weapon of choice was a 4' long fleece tug.... Bring it on.
So, that was the highlights. The rest of that weekend went pretty smoothly. I had clean starts save for one or two. My typical starting time for the first while was on average .100 ish. now once I started getting into the groove of things with starts and the timing of the lights, I asked Lex if I could start moving Demo up a bit to tweek our starts and she let me. Slowly working start times down and getting better starts.
I am going to say that first initial time I was allowed to move Demo forward and try some starts on my own with where I placed him is the moment I caught the flyball bug.
From there I became all about getting the best start for my team. It clicked with me that my starts are my contribution to the team and that is what makes me feel apart of the team. Cue the mushy gushy stuff.
Moving on to the second tournament that I had ever participated in. With one practice and one tournament under my belt I naturally felt like a pro. This tournament brought out more members of the team than the previous tournament, so I got to meet more people; and let me tell you something, the peeps on this team are hil-freaking-larious. Better still, Lex decided to take a backseat at this tournament and let other people run all 3 of her dogs. Most importantly, this meant I got to run Demo a lot. Like, A LOT A LOT. Lex ran Demo for two of the eleven-ish races he ended up running in that weekend, one because he did something we can't remember but she wanted to run him to try and fix it and the second was because he was going to get his FDCH-G. She's sentimental like that. But all the other races, that shit was all me. [Lexi's note: Demo got so many races because we ended up pulling Pan from a few as she was having major problems on the box - her back feet slipping off and such so to save her body we gave her a rest and put Demo in.]
We did pretty darn well all day Saturday, the average starting time was .0 something something and I was quite pleased with myself. We ran fast and we ran clean. You couldn't ask for a better tournament!
Then shit got real on Sunday. We're in the middle of the day (it's about here that my tug mechanics make the transition from fly fishing to demon killing). We had been talking about perfect starts earlier that day and Lex made a comment, "There is nothing worse than a -.001 start." and what do I do? I nail a frustratingly imperfect -.001 start. So I make an annoyed grumble and get Demo back in line to try that again. He was doing spectacular, bobbled a few times but made a good recovery. Now a couple races down the line, we get to the second or third heat and by now I've got my routine down. Demo and myself had moved up to roughly the 43' marker and we had fantastic starts from there, false starts if we moved up any more and slow starts if we moved back. So 43' it was. Now in the middle of this race, we do our thing. I had stopped even looking at the time clock at the end of the lane because we had plenty of people to take times and box load and call passes. So I get Demo on the tug and Kandice comes back with Malley who ran second and passed into Demo and she's yelling "Dude, you got a perfect start!!"
Me: what?!
Kandice: You got a perfect start!
Me: Seriously?! Awesome!! I didn't even look at the clock!!
Dude from other team: It doesn't count if you don't see it, haha!
Me: I'll take what I can get...LEX!!!! I GOT A PERFECT START!!!! (She was calling passes that race so she wasn't tooooo far away and ran back and gave me a high five)
While all this is happening on the outside, on the inside I am all "BOOM BITCHES!!! I GOT A PERFECT START MOTHERFUCKERS!!! POINT ZERO ZERO ZERO! FUCK YEAH!"
After the race the guy from the other team bro fisted me and we got Tasha's reaction to it (she was taking down times so she was too far away for the initial celebratoriness between heats). She said "I was taking times and then I saw 000 and I thought it was broken. I looked at it, then I looked at the other side, and I just decided oh well and just wrote it down."
That pretty much sums up my second tournament, we got some schwanky glasses for being there, I got two because I ran Demo and box loaded. But we'll save box loading for chapter 2...
Matt out!
Matt will be back (hopefully) soon with Chatper 2 and how we literally threw him into boxloading, in the mean time show him some love by commenting on the blog and sharing it with your friends! Maybe we really will publish it some day! ;)
Introduction:
At Saturday's flyball practice my friend Matty, who has been running Demo for me at recent tournaments, said he is going to write a book about flyball and he has already picked the title. From Fly Fishing to Perfect Starts. This made me laugh as it is Matt's first two flyball tournaments in a nut shell.
In March I put out a call on my facebook page that I needed someone to run one of my dogs in a tournament in April because two of my dogs would need to be on the same team and I can't run two dogs at the same time. Matty, who had been to a tournament in Januray for a few hours said "That sounds like fun, I'll do it!" He made it to one practice, the week before the tournament, where he learned the basic mechanics of how flyball runs: releasing Demo, when to call him, how to catch him and get the hell out of the way of the other dogs.
His first race was... interesting. We were almost late and almost missed warmups. It was less than ideal, but we survived. Matt survived, and is now excelling at starting Demo.
As a semi-regular feature we will be sharing Matty's story. Which is the story of flyball from the perspective of a total noob. Flyball from the perspective of someone who was just about thrown into the ring blind. Someone who went from fly fishing with a tug, to having a perfect start in just two tournaments. Take it away Matty.
 |
| That's Matt in the Blue, and Jbiz running up the lane. |
As Lex said, I knew the basics of how flyball runs, and let me stress this, I knew BASICS. I knew on which light I should let go of Demo, I knew roughly where I needed to run up to with the tug that Demo loves so much and I knew to run back and get the hell out of the way of everything else. So we go in and the warm up timer is counting down so we make a mad dash to the box to do run outs and and get that out of the way [Lexi's note: Just so you get the amount of pressure we were under, all three of my dogs ended up on the same team due to a last minute lineup change where one of our team members pulled her dog. I was coming off of an injury where a dog had bitten my hand and I had to fight off a huge infection, and I had JUST been cleared to full use of my hand the day before - it was still VERY sore. We had two green handlers, Matt running Demo and Jbiz running Trophy and I was running Pan. Jbiz had some more practice time under her belt, but we don't practice with as much runback as in a tournament so this was her first time doing actual passes... and we didn't have a practice run. We had just enough time for a run out, but not enough time for a full warm up run. AGAIN: We had a run out... and then game time. Talk about pressure, there was a lot of it riding on their shoulders. My account of this first tournament can be read here.]. An experienced flyballer would have known what was going on and that time is of the essence here. And there was moi, so being the noob that I was (am?), I just tried to keep up with everything. As anyone who isn't normally in these situations can attest to, having someone yell at you can be a bit startling so when they yelled "RUN!" at me it took me a second to process. but after a moment I kicked it into gear and away I went down the lane.
Now, there is something I was told after that first race. When I am being 'yelled' at, its not yelling per say. No one is necessarily mad at me and pissed off. They are yelling for a few reasons. Mainly its loud and people need to be heard so they have to yell. Also, they need to emphasize speed is of the essence and you need to move fast because I swear everything at a flyball tournament is on a timer.
So my very first race: there I am, lined up with Demo, kinda half squatted half crouched over, waiting for the the lights to start the count down. I believe I was somewhere around the 48' mark... or something close to that. The lights start and I see, one yellow.... "Demo readyyyyyy".... two yellow.... "Go!" and away he went, doing his thing. I take off after him doing as I was told. Running down towards the start line I pull the tug from around my neck, Demo gets the ball from the box and that's my cue. I swing the tug down on the ground and begin to run toward the back of the lane waiting for Demo to grab it. Now two things happened in the whopping 2 seconds from me swinging the tug to Demo grabbing it that I did wrong. First off, what I had thought was perfectly fine tug swinging mechanics, was actually a laughable imitation at fly fishing as the rest of the team described it. I got up to my position and (as I was told later) "gently tossed the tug up and out in an arc, then gently swung it down with a flourish and ran back".
VIDEO PROOF of Matt's horrible Tug skillz at 0:06 seconds. ;-) Compare to Deb's Tug skills at 0:16seconds.
 |
| Just before the fly fishing began... |
So I was one heat of my debut flyball race in and already I had been made fun of, and injured. Both of which I fully deserved.
Pausing for a moment to clarify, MY TUG MECHANICS DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT ANYMORE! The advise given to me from the all mighty flyball teacher known as Lex were to "take all your demons out on that floor" so I tried that. My mission was to beat the floor into submission and my weapon of choice was a 4' long fleece tug.... Bring it on.
 |
| It was raining Sunday, so we carried Pan and Demo to the building and back to try to save their boots. |
I am going to say that first initial time I was allowed to move Demo forward and try some starts on my own with where I placed him is the moment I caught the flyball bug.
From there I became all about getting the best start for my team. It clicked with me that my starts are my contribution to the team and that is what makes me feel apart of the team. Cue the mushy gushy stuff.
Moving on to the second tournament that I had ever participated in. With one practice and one tournament under my belt I naturally felt like a pro. This tournament brought out more members of the team than the previous tournament, so I got to meet more people; and let me tell you something, the peeps on this team are hil-freaking-larious. Better still, Lex decided to take a backseat at this tournament and let other people run all 3 of her dogs. Most importantly, this meant I got to run Demo a lot. Like, A LOT A LOT. Lex ran Demo for two of the eleven-ish races he ended up running in that weekend, one because he did something we can't remember but she wanted to run him to try and fix it and the second was because he was going to get his FDCH-G. She's sentimental like that. But all the other races, that shit was all me. [Lexi's note: Demo got so many races because we ended up pulling Pan from a few as she was having major problems on the box - her back feet slipping off and such so to save her body we gave her a rest and put Demo in.]
We did pretty darn well all day Saturday, the average starting time was .0 something something and I was quite pleased with myself. We ran fast and we ran clean. You couldn't ask for a better tournament!
 |
| Snuggling before Sunday Race Day! |
Me: what?!
Kandice: You got a perfect start!
Me: Seriously?! Awesome!! I didn't even look at the clock!!
Dude from other team: It doesn't count if you don't see it, haha!
Me: I'll take what I can get...LEX!!!! I GOT A PERFECT START!!!! (She was calling passes that race so she wasn't tooooo far away and ran back and gave me a high five)
While all this is happening on the outside, on the inside I am all "BOOM BITCHES!!! I GOT A PERFECT START MOTHERFUCKERS!!! POINT ZERO ZERO ZERO! FUCK YEAH!"
After the race the guy from the other team bro fisted me and we got Tasha's reaction to it (she was taking down times so she was too far away for the initial celebratoriness between heats). She said "I was taking times and then I saw 000 and I thought it was broken. I looked at it, then I looked at the other side, and I just decided oh well and just wrote it down."
That pretty much sums up my second tournament, we got some schwanky glasses for being there, I got two because I ran Demo and box loaded. But we'll save box loading for chapter 2...
Matt out!
Matt will be back (hopefully) soon with Chatper 2 and how we literally threw him into boxloading, in the mean time show him some love by commenting on the blog and sharing it with your friends! Maybe we really will publish it some day! ;)
Saturday, June 29, 2013
The Flying Squeewok
This upcoming weekend, one week from today, Cocoa will be making her preflight debut. I can't believe she's only been in flyball training for just about 3 months...
Today she had her first full run in practice. Can't wait to see her in action at a tournament setting!!
Video:
Later this week I will be introducing a new feature to this blog. We're calling it The Noob's Guide to Flyball. Don't miss it, it's a hilarious look at a friend's first flyball tournament and I'm hoping we can turn his adventures into a book!
Today she had her first full run in practice. Can't wait to see her in action at a tournament setting!!
Video:
Later this week I will be introducing a new feature to this blog. We're calling it The Noob's Guide to Flyball. Don't miss it, it's a hilarious look at a friend's first flyball tournament and I'm hoping we can turn his adventures into a book!
Thursday, June 27, 2013
So You Want To Do Flyball...
When I was applying for my first Border Collie back in 2007, I did some research on local training facilities and dog sport options. I had a couple online friends who competed in Flyball and it looked like a lot of fun. There was a nearby team and I vowed to check it out when I brought my dog home.
Well, then Qwill was diagnosed with hip dysplasia, Shiner a broken pelvis, and Trophy was only 4 months old when I moved back to Ohio.
Trophy was 3 (well 2 years 9 months) when we finally made the jump and attended our first Flyball practice. There is so much I wish I had known back then that I know now, so if you've ever thought about trying out Flyball this is the post for you!
1. Terminology
2. Most Likely You Are Going To Become Addicted
For me this meant that after being in the sport less than three years I would go from 1 competing dog to 3 competing dogs and a puppy in training, get no less than 2 of my friends helplessly addicted (one if whom doesn't even have a dog-he runs Demo for me), own my team and run my own beginners classes. Your millage may vary. You should, however, be prepared to bond with your team, your dog, and find yourself wishing it was a Flyball weekend at the very lowest end of the "Flyball addiction" spectrum.
3. There Is Lots Of Homework
If you go into a Flyball class expecting to not have to work your dog at home you will be able to eventually compete, but it is going to take exponentially longer. Trophy took 5 months to train, Pan 6, Demo 10. With all of them I took props and boards home to practice. If you do no work at home plan on it taking over a year to get your dog at competition level.
Demo would have not made his debut at CanAm2012 without lots of practice reps in our hallway.
4. Find A Team You Mesh With
There are lots of reasons why people play Flyball. The two most popular being for points and to be the fastest.
Teams that run to be fast are often going for regional championships, out they are running for the accolades of being the fastest ranked team, and still others run to set world records. They have a truly competitive spirit and are always pushing for speed, pushing passes to be as tight as possible, and occasionally you will find the team that puts winning before sportsmanship and their dogs safety.
Our team runs for points and therefore titles as we accumulate points. This means we can accommodate some slower dogs as we put together teams with the sole purpose of running together under 24 seconds. We don't push passes to try to get the fastest time, we would rather run clean and watch the points rack up. This does not mean we are anti competitive, but rather that we will switch out slower dogs for faster dogs to try and gain a speed advantage or we make sure we run clean when our opponents are pushing passes so they flag and we complete the race.
Getting on a team whose philosophies don't line up with yours can cause heartache down the road, especially if your dog isn't living up to your expectations... or the teams. But Expectations are a whole 'nuther ball o' problems that I'll touch on in a later post.
5. There Is More Equipment Needed Than You Think
While as a regular team member you don't have to worry about buying a Flyball box or jumps, there is a lot more equipment you will find yourself needing/wanting.
From outfitting your dog: special Flyball collar or harness, skid boots, vet wrap, tug toys, cooling jackets, therapeutic jackets with ceramic or magnetic therapy (for when you get truly over-the-top addicted) etc.
To camping gear: tent, cot, sleeping bag or RV if you are fancy-schmancy... x-pens (and the stakes and top cover) or extra travel kennels, water buckets, pop up for shade, sun foils and shade tarps, crate fans, crate blankets, mats to cover the floor, cooler, folding chair, extension cords, etc.
Or, if camping isn't your thing, hotel swag: travel kennel, dog blankets for the bed, etc.
And above all else, an insane amount of poop bags!
Also, there are the visits with the Chiropractor... but not for you, for your dogs!
6. What To Expect When You're Expecting To Compete In Your First Tournament
This depends on if you are debuting in NAFA or UFLI Flyball.
UFLI has several options for green dogs. The new "preflight" class that (as of last check of the rule book) gives your dog 7 minutes of ring time for training in the tournament environment. This can be an incredibly valuable tool to help proof dogs to their job in a highly distracting environment. You are welcome to have any dog on your team run with your dog to practice passing or against your dog to work on that aspect of competition. I started Demo in preflight before he had a boxturn- just picking the ball up off the floor - to work the pattern in the environment. If your dog is a little father along and you want to try racing a stranger or passing and racing strangers then you can enter singles or pairs racing. Singles is your dog running head to head with another dog for time, pairs is you and a partner running had to head with another pairs team (also helpful for practicing your starts)!
For NAFA or UFLI team debuts, your team may have a different policy, but our team functions like this:
You will be placed on a team with 4 veteran dogs and perhaps one other green dog. Teams have 6 dogs on them, 4 dogs run each heat from the listed 6, so if any green dogs have some green dog issues we have enough experienced dogs to complete the run.
You are given the majority of the warm up time to do a few close up box turns, a run out (where someone holds your dog by the box and you call them down the lane. This helps proof the dog on which lane they are running in) and do a few practice runs.
If your dog handled the practice runs well we will put him in the race. We like to start green dogs either first or last so they only have to worry about running past one dog, not sandwiched between two dogs.
If your dog flags for dropping or missing a ball or missing jumps we have the dog rerun to see if he makes the same mistake out if he fixes the mistake. Then we will make a decision to let him run another heat or put in a veteran dog. If, for example, a green dog drops his ball when running head to head with another dog but completes correctly with no dog in the other lane, we will let him try again in the next heat. If he again can't hold his ball racing against another dog we will pull him so he doesn't start to pattern "I can run twice if in don't bring my ball the first time" or it may indicate we need to do more head to head practice in training. We will give the dog the next warm up to try again.
So, that's flyball for beginners in a nutshell. :)
Well, then Qwill was diagnosed with hip dysplasia, Shiner a broken pelvis, and Trophy was only 4 months old when I moved back to Ohio.
Trophy was 3 (well 2 years 9 months) when we finally made the jump and attended our first Flyball practice. There is so much I wish I had known back then that I know now, so if you've ever thought about trying out Flyball this is the post for you!
1. Terminology
- a Flyball tournament is made up of head to head RACEs between two teams.
- Races are made up of 3 to 5 matches called HEATS.
- The order your dogs will run in is called THE LINE UP.
- The first dog in the line up is called the START DOG.
- The last dog is called the ANCHOR DOG.
- The middle area of the Flyball course where the dogs run is called the LANE.
- The area behind the start line where your team lines up is called the RUN BACK.
- If the dog coming onto the course crosses the start line before the dog completing the course has crossed the start line it is a BAD PASS.
- If a dog or owner makes a mistake such as running around jumps, not picking up the ball, dropping the ball before crossing the finish line, owners hand or toy crosses any part of the finish line, bad passes, etc, it is called a FLAG and the dog is said to HAVE FLAGGED.
- When a dog flags they must rerun the course after the rest of the dogs on the team complete on order to finish the race and get a time. If more than one dog flags both must rerun in the correct order or you get a NO FINISH and no points.
 |
| View of the RUNBACK of our START DOG running down the LANE. :) |
2. Most Likely You Are Going To Become Addicted
For me this meant that after being in the sport less than three years I would go from 1 competing dog to 3 competing dogs and a puppy in training, get no less than 2 of my friends helplessly addicted (one if whom doesn't even have a dog-he runs Demo for me), own my team and run my own beginners classes. Your millage may vary. You should, however, be prepared to bond with your team, your dog, and find yourself wishing it was a Flyball weekend at the very lowest end of the "Flyball addiction" spectrum.
 |
| Trophy and I hanging out between races at his first tournament. Back when I knew so little and I'm lucky I remembered to bring him a water bowl... |
3. There Is Lots Of Homework
If you go into a Flyball class expecting to not have to work your dog at home you will be able to eventually compete, but it is going to take exponentially longer. Trophy took 5 months to train, Pan 6, Demo 10. With all of them I took props and boards home to practice. If you do no work at home plan on it taking over a year to get your dog at competition level.
Demo would have not made his debut at CanAm2012 without lots of practice reps in our hallway.
4. Find A Team You Mesh With
There are lots of reasons why people play Flyball. The two most popular being for points and to be the fastest.
Teams that run to be fast are often going for regional championships, out they are running for the accolades of being the fastest ranked team, and still others run to set world records. They have a truly competitive spirit and are always pushing for speed, pushing passes to be as tight as possible, and occasionally you will find the team that puts winning before sportsmanship and their dogs safety.
 |
| Hanging out at Base Camp during lunch break. Photograph by Kandice Nadeau. |
Getting on a team whose philosophies don't line up with yours can cause heartache down the road, especially if your dog isn't living up to your expectations... or the teams. But Expectations are a whole 'nuther ball o' problems that I'll touch on in a later post.
 |
| Recharging. My favorite picture from CanAm2011. |
5. There Is More Equipment Needed Than You Think
While as a regular team member you don't have to worry about buying a Flyball box or jumps, there is a lot more equipment you will find yourself needing/wanting.
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| Can't live without this stuff. |
From outfitting your dog: special Flyball collar or harness, skid boots, vet wrap, tug toys, cooling jackets, therapeutic jackets with ceramic or magnetic therapy (for when you get truly over-the-top addicted) etc.
To camping gear: tent, cot, sleeping bag or RV if you are fancy-schmancy... x-pens (and the stakes and top cover) or extra travel kennels, water buckets, pop up for shade, sun foils and shade tarps, crate fans, crate blankets, mats to cover the floor, cooler, folding chair, extension cords, etc.
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| Cool Coat! |
Or, if camping isn't your thing, hotel swag: travel kennel, dog blankets for the bed, etc.
And above all else, an insane amount of poop bags!
Also, there are the visits with the Chiropractor... but not for you, for your dogs!
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| Packing List.... Dogs? CHECK! |
6. What To Expect When You're Expecting To Compete In Your First Tournament
This depends on if you are debuting in NAFA or UFLI Flyball.
UFLI has several options for green dogs. The new "preflight" class that (as of last check of the rule book) gives your dog 7 minutes of ring time for training in the tournament environment. This can be an incredibly valuable tool to help proof dogs to their job in a highly distracting environment. You are welcome to have any dog on your team run with your dog to practice passing or against your dog to work on that aspect of competition. I started Demo in preflight before he had a boxturn- just picking the ball up off the floor - to work the pattern in the environment. If your dog is a little father along and you want to try racing a stranger or passing and racing strangers then you can enter singles or pairs racing. Singles is your dog running head to head with another dog for time, pairs is you and a partner running had to head with another pairs team (also helpful for practicing your starts)!
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| Trophy's swag from CanAm2011 |
For NAFA or UFLI team debuts, your team may have a different policy, but our team functions like this:
You will be placed on a team with 4 veteran dogs and perhaps one other green dog. Teams have 6 dogs on them, 4 dogs run each heat from the listed 6, so if any green dogs have some green dog issues we have enough experienced dogs to complete the run.
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| Demo with his FDCh Title Ribbon. You don't always get ribbons, but when you do it's AWESOME! |
You are given the majority of the warm up time to do a few close up box turns, a run out (where someone holds your dog by the box and you call them down the lane. This helps proof the dog on which lane they are running in) and do a few practice runs.
If your dog handled the practice runs well we will put him in the race. We like to start green dogs either first or last so they only have to worry about running past one dog, not sandwiched between two dogs.
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| Sleeping between races, or before racing began, since they still have their coats on. |
If your dog flags for dropping or missing a ball or missing jumps we have the dog rerun to see if he makes the same mistake out if he fixes the mistake. Then we will make a decision to let him run another heat or put in a veteran dog. If, for example, a green dog drops his ball when running head to head with another dog but completes correctly with no dog in the other lane, we will let him try again in the next heat. If he again can't hold his ball racing against another dog we will pull him so he doesn't start to pattern "I can run twice if in don't bring my ball the first time" or it may indicate we need to do more head to head practice in training. We will give the dog the next warm up to try again.
So, that's flyball for beginners in a nutshell. :)
Thursday, June 20, 2013
The Countdown Begins Again
I finally did it.
It's official.
I entered Trophy in an agility trial.
August 9th.
To cement the deal his official height card even arrived in the mail yesterday.
Only entered him Friday because the rest of the weekend is reserved for purebreds only and my fantastic boy is a mix. Which is part of why i hate AKC. Yes, let's fill our greedy pockets by accepting mix breed into their own special program, but still give everyone the option to exclude them whenever they feel inclined to do so. Granted it's not as bad as the original proprosal when they were thinking of starting the Canine Partners program where everything was to be "seperate but equal" (glad they took a look at the history books and how well that did NOT turn out in the civil rights movement)... but it still sucks. Especially since AKC is the most accessable agility venue where i live. Trust me, didnt really want to register him with the AKC, but, i'll pay for my sins elsewhere i suppose.
Now i have to get him refocused on his contacts, which he has been blowing off lately. I mean, he's not jumping over them, but he's definitely not stopping in 2o2o like he is supposed to. He steps off the aframe (his most skipped contact) stands at the bottom and looks at me. If i glare at him he will backup into position, but im trying to get away from that as it will get us NQ'd in the ring. I need to teach him to target touch for his contacts like i did for Demo, but between teaching Eevee life skills and working on Demo's contacts i havent worked with Trophy much recently. Goals for saturday while i have a day off i suppose!
The good thing is he has been much more focused on *ME* lately. We had been having a problem where he is head over heels in love with a classmate of mine who has run him a couple times, brings things like steak and ham chunks for her dogs class rewards, and always gives him a goodie at the very end of class.
Well, it got to the point where with 20 minutes left in class he would stop on the down side of the dog walk or teeter to turn around and look at her. Or he would stop on top of the aframe to look at her. And if he was on the table god help me if she said ANYTHING because even if im trying to release him to run the course with me, as soon as he heard her voice he would light off like a fire cracker to run to her. Shitheaded dog! Two weeks ago i took a crate, moved it so he wouldnt be able to see her if i put him in it, and proceded like normal until he wouldnt focus on me and then i grabbed him by the scruff of the neck (he runs naked) walked him allllll the way back to my chair from the other side of the building and threw him in the kennel. He paid much better attention the rest of the class.
Now, she was sick last week, so he was excellent for me, we will see how he does today.
You only get one Novice A dog, so i really hope he doesnt let me down!
UPDATE: got confirmation today (6.27.13) that he is #18 and #19 on the waitlist for his JWW and Standard runs, so looks pretty good that we will get into that trial! Woohoo!
It's official.
I entered Trophy in an agility trial.
August 9th.
To cement the deal his official height card even arrived in the mail yesterday.
Only entered him Friday because the rest of the weekend is reserved for purebreds only and my fantastic boy is a mix. Which is part of why i hate AKC. Yes, let's fill our greedy pockets by accepting mix breed into their own special program, but still give everyone the option to exclude them whenever they feel inclined to do so. Granted it's not as bad as the original proprosal when they were thinking of starting the Canine Partners program where everything was to be "seperate but equal" (glad they took a look at the history books and how well that did NOT turn out in the civil rights movement)... but it still sucks. Especially since AKC is the most accessable agility venue where i live. Trust me, didnt really want to register him with the AKC, but, i'll pay for my sins elsewhere i suppose.
Now i have to get him refocused on his contacts, which he has been blowing off lately. I mean, he's not jumping over them, but he's definitely not stopping in 2o2o like he is supposed to. He steps off the aframe (his most skipped contact) stands at the bottom and looks at me. If i glare at him he will backup into position, but im trying to get away from that as it will get us NQ'd in the ring. I need to teach him to target touch for his contacts like i did for Demo, but between teaching Eevee life skills and working on Demo's contacts i havent worked with Trophy much recently. Goals for saturday while i have a day off i suppose!
The good thing is he has been much more focused on *ME* lately. We had been having a problem where he is head over heels in love with a classmate of mine who has run him a couple times, brings things like steak and ham chunks for her dogs class rewards, and always gives him a goodie at the very end of class.
Well, it got to the point where with 20 minutes left in class he would stop on the down side of the dog walk or teeter to turn around and look at her. Or he would stop on top of the aframe to look at her. And if he was on the table god help me if she said ANYTHING because even if im trying to release him to run the course with me, as soon as he heard her voice he would light off like a fire cracker to run to her. Shitheaded dog! Two weeks ago i took a crate, moved it so he wouldnt be able to see her if i put him in it, and proceded like normal until he wouldnt focus on me and then i grabbed him by the scruff of the neck (he runs naked) walked him allllll the way back to my chair from the other side of the building and threw him in the kennel. He paid much better attention the rest of the class.
Now, she was sick last week, so he was excellent for me, we will see how he does today.
You only get one Novice A dog, so i really hope he doesnt let me down!
UPDATE: got confirmation today (6.27.13) that he is #18 and #19 on the waitlist for his JWW and Standard runs, so looks pretty good that we will get into that trial! Woohoo!
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Demo and the Grown Up Agility Course
So... crazy things have happened.
The biggest thing, with the biggest impact to this blog is that Pan has been pulled from agility. I'm sad about this for a number of reasons, first and foremost being that I got into agility because it was what my sister always wanted to do. So to get her doing something with Pan I tracked down the agility instructor she started with with Koda way back when and signed up with Trophy in the same class. Secondly, Pan has been doing better in agility than Trophy lately.
However, my sister still has some pretty major health concerns, the least of which being she may have to have a 5th surgery and her health insurance runs out in January if she doesn't find a "big girl" job before then... SO. We decided to pull Pan. The look on Pan's face when my sister drove away with her in the car while I walked Trophy and Demo into the practice building was excruciating. But, there's always Flyball for her.
So, now that a spot opened up and Demo is doing so well in his beginners class, we moved Demo up to fill Pan's spot.
He started running Grown Up agility courses Thursday night. Now, if my head had been more in the game and less on my sister's health and pulling Pan, etc, we probably would have had an awesome run of it... instead I was foggy and slow to get my signals out.
But, Demo did very, very, very well for being a very green dog running basically a Master/Excellent level course.
Trophy did well, but not as well as I would have liked. I hope it's because he was picking up on my mood.
We will see next week.
The biggest thing, with the biggest impact to this blog is that Pan has been pulled from agility. I'm sad about this for a number of reasons, first and foremost being that I got into agility because it was what my sister always wanted to do. So to get her doing something with Pan I tracked down the agility instructor she started with with Koda way back when and signed up with Trophy in the same class. Secondly, Pan has been doing better in agility than Trophy lately.
However, my sister still has some pretty major health concerns, the least of which being she may have to have a 5th surgery and her health insurance runs out in January if she doesn't find a "big girl" job before then... SO. We decided to pull Pan. The look on Pan's face when my sister drove away with her in the car while I walked Trophy and Demo into the practice building was excruciating. But, there's always Flyball for her.
So, now that a spot opened up and Demo is doing so well in his beginners class, we moved Demo up to fill Pan's spot.
He started running Grown Up agility courses Thursday night. Now, if my head had been more in the game and less on my sister's health and pulling Pan, etc, we probably would have had an awesome run of it... instead I was foggy and slow to get my signals out.
But, Demo did very, very, very well for being a very green dog running basically a Master/Excellent level course.
Trophy did well, but not as well as I would have liked. I hope it's because he was picking up on my mood.
We will see next week.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Spring Pole Fun
So this weekend I did.
Actually I made two.
My dogs are bigger than Koira from So Fly, so I went with a much heavier duty spring as I not only foresaw my 40-50 pound dogs going to town on this thing, but I also wanted to eliminate anything breaking from more than one dog tugging on the same tug.
Koda (on the pink tug above) loved it and spent the most time on it. I thought for sure Demo would love it as well, but we had to hide his jollyballs and encourage him to play, although you can see that he did get into it for a bit.
The tugs are on carabiners so I can easily unclip them from the spring and bring them inside so the dogs are never unsupervised with the spring poles.
In all I spent $45 on the two, not including the tugs since I had them on hand.
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