Saturday September 2nd 2006 - team practice (inside at TTH)

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Today was our team's first practice at TTH and Lucy's first time there. She just keeps surprising me: when we go somewhere new I keep expecting her to want to sniff around and check things out, but no; as soon as she sees the equipment and realizes she gets to play flyball, nothing else matters and it's right down to business! We did a bunch of full runs (including some "passing" with Sammy) and I started to experiment with how far back to send her from. It's so neat now to have all that space to play with. For the first time ever we timed her runs (using a stopwatch, jumps set at the minimum height, slant board, and wings). I was a bit nervous thinking she might ring in in the 8 or 10 second range! Here are her times from the ones we timed, in order that she did them:

5.86 (sent from close to the start line)
5.7something (sent from close to the start line)
5.34 (sent from a bit back from the start line (15 feet maybe? didn't measure)

Obviously she does better with a headstart. I will keep experimenting with the distances to find what works best for her. Of note, she didn't fumble the ball at all today. Also, on one run there were no wings and she did a wide turn but corrected herself in time for the jumps.