Saturday May 26th 2007 - team practice

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

Two-jump recalls with Jenn and Sammy off to the side went well. Participated in the "honoring the running dog" recall exercise and she did great even with 3 or 4 dogs in the lineup area (though off to the side a bit). She was quite happy with the canned food she was being rewarded with. A few full runs with some good tugging finished off her flyball day.

Saturday May 19th and Sunday May 20th 2007 - HDD tournament (Trenton hockey arena)

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

Despite a sleepless start (Friday night was Walter's first night at a motel and he thought he was supposed to sound the alarm at every single sound of 10 decibels or higher), it was another great tournament! Like last weekend, Lucy and Sammy shared a spot on BackDraft's Regular team. The hectic and noisy two-ring format didn't faze them at all and they both ran clean and consistent the whole tournament! Not a dropped ball or missed jump! They are really proving themselves to be reliable, solid flyball dogs. Both earned their FDCh titles this weekend and their consistent performance was a key factor in the team taking third place out of six teams in the Regular 4 division.

By far the biggest highlight of my weekend was that Lucy has started to tug as her reward! Until today (Sunday) I've only rewarded her with treats but her tug a-ha moment must have come to her Saturday night as she slept... because right from the get-go on Sunday she was tugging hard for all of her races and having a ball with it. The interaction of tugging provides a whole new level of fun for both Lucy and me compared to simply doling out treats and praise. I can definitely see phasing out the treats in the future (I was still giving her a treat or two after tugging, but only after she "won" the game by pulling the tug out of my hands) and hopefully even graduating to a more tuggable type of tug than the treat tug we're using now.

Another success is that she only bobbled the ball on 3 of her 20 heats which is a pretty darn good ratio for her! She still hasn't figured out that flyball is a *race* but that's ok, her a-ha moment is bound to come sooner or later and I'm really happy about the tug a-ha moment that happened!

Time-wise, from the few times that I looked she was in the low sixes. From manually timing the actual run times on the videos we took (ie not including the pass), her fastest was 5.5 on Sunday (which was also her best time at U-Fli), not bad at all considering the jumps were at 12" and she was starting from only 10 feet back due to the dog before her not being able to be passed into.

In summary I'm just so happy that she was totally confident and happy, getting into the game of it especially on Sunday. Our next tournament likely won't be for a long while but this was a good way to go on tourney-hiatus.

Temperature: Clear on Saturday, cloudy on Sunday, highs of about 17 degrees.

Here's a video of one of Lucy's heats. She's the fourth dog racing in the far lane.

Note the wagging tail while she's in the lineup!


Taking full photographic advantage of the gorgeous parkland at the tournament site; I think that's the Bay of Quinte behind the dogs. A sign on the nearby bridge calls it "The Gateway to the Trent-Severn Waterway".

Saturday May 12th 2007 - FBI tournament (Navan curling rink) - Lucy's and my first NAFA tournament!

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

Today Lucy raced in her first ever NAFA tournament! Backdraft had an opening on one of their teams so Lucy and Sammy are sharing a spot for a few tournies, this weekend being the first, until our own team has enough dogs ready to race next year. Lucy raced today and Sammy will race tomorrow. Anyway, Lucy ran great! Jumps were at full height and she ran last in the lineup. Coming in around 6.1 seconds (from the few times I glanced at the clock) she's not the fastest dog, but you know what? She ran clean each and every heat, taking all of the jumps and bringing the ball back even when she bobbled it (which wasn't very often with the exception of the fourth of five races where she bobbled 3/3), so I'm very proud of her! Her passes into Solo were very good and she was the last dog so no return passes to deal with. Of note, she did some nice treat-tug tugging after being treated after each run and it helped rev her up a bit; I'll tap into that more now that I'm reminded that she does have some tug desire (though I wouldn't call it tug drive just yet!). Warmups all day were one or two no-ball turns followed by a run with ball started from one or two jumps back. All runs started from 10-15 feet back. After earning her first title a few weeks ago (CGN) she has added a couple of more new titles under her belt after today: FD and FDX! Weather: Mostly sunny, 6 degrees in the morning up to 14 in the afternoon.

The customary after-the-last-race photo

Saturday May 5th 2007 - team practice

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

Five recalls over 12" jumps: sometimes she'd bounce, sometimes she'd sneak in an extra stride, and a couple of times she hit the jumps enough to dislodge the top 1" slat (good thing it's the special splinter-free kind). Up-close boxwork with BR box: Not a single bobbled ball out of about a dozen turns! Either she was feeling particularly unclutzy today (after getting the clutziness out of her system during the recalls) or she likes the BR box better than ours. Full runs with Sammy over 12": once or twice she dropped the ball after the first jump coming back, not sure why, could have been the 12" jumps were a little overwhelming for her today? Lucy and Sammy took turns going first for the full runs and when Lucy was first, a couple of times she deeked around the last jump but also a couple of times she didn't. One last note, last week I started to modify the release hold where instead of straddling her and holding her collar/shoulders, I kneel down and prop her back legs on mine so that she has something to push off against. Worked on sending her to treats at home this week to get her more comfortable with it which seems to be working. Needless to say I don't think I'll be trying this with 20-lbs-heavier Walter!