the game is flyball

this past weekend, my dog club (Piscataqua Obedience Club) and our flyball team (Maine Coast Runners) were the hosts to a new england regional flyball tournament. This is the fifth year that we have hosted a tournament and they get better and better each year. As usual, our horse trailer was pressed into service to transport mats, jumps and the various equipment that is needed. I love pulling my trailer and so, am more than happy to help out in this department.

I used to play flyball with Moxie, but sadly (and rarely does this ever happen) she was "hit" by another dog from another team that we were racing. After that, she would not play.... we tried for months to get her back in the game, but she was either too smart or too scared and never went back. I did pull Trevor out for awhile, and he picked up enough points for the first two titles, but somehow after that, I guess I just lost interest and now, am more of a "moral support" to the team.

For those of you who may not know what this is all about.. here's a quick run down. You have a team of four dogs racing another team of four dogs... it's a relay race. The idea is to have the dogs jump over four jumps to a box that has a ball in it, the dogs catch the ball and race back and the next team member is sent. The team that gets all their dogs down and back and have no mistakes... wins the heat.

Any dog with a drive for running and fetching can play. And since the height of the jumps are based on your smallest dog, teams often look for little ones to play.. they are called "height dogs"... which is what Moxie and Trevor were. Really fast teams can do all of this in about 16-18 SECONDS!!! (which is hard to get a good picture of the race, the dogs are just way too fast!!!) Each race is worth is certain number of points and as dogs wrack up the points, they are awarded different titles.

There were 39 teams that raced this year... they came from all over new england and we even had a couple of teams that came down from Canada.

It is great fun, and I do miss having a dog to run. I sort of am toying with the idea of bring Trevor out and see what he thinks of all of this. He is "crazy" about a ball, and now that he is older, perhaps he will be a bit more settled than he was in his younger day. We'll see...

but, it made for a fun weekend, it was nice to see a lot of my "old" flyball friends and have dinner out with the group... and, as with anything of this size... plans for next year are already in the works.....