Dogzworth's Big O tournament

Lucy ended her 2008 flyball season with this weekend's tournament, NAFA Region 20's biggest: Dogzworth's Big O! Held at Montreal's Olympic Stadium (known as the Big O), the tournament is part of a huge dog show/companion animal expo, featuring a two-ring flyball tournament, an AAC agility trial (which Lucy participated in last year), obedience competitions, disc dog trial, a conformation dog show, a conformation cat show, and of course tons of vendors and breeders. The flyball tournament this year was pretty darn big with 62 teams coming from as far as Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Connecticut!

Lucy ran with DGB's regular team: Start dog extraordinaire Kia (NAFA's #1 Red and White Setter), yes-even-huge-dogs-can-have-gorgeous-swimmer's-turns Rocky (huge chocolate lab and mellowest rescue dog ever), Lucy running in third, and squirty-9"-height-dog-who-even-with-teency-short-legs-is-way-faster-than-Lucy Niki (fellow Ottawa Humane Society adoptee, corgi/german shepherd mix). All the dogs ran well, though in the spirit of true teamwork they each made a contribution or two to the flag situation. Lucy VERY uncharacterisically dropped a ball in two heats in the second race on Sunday. She never ever ever drops balls. The only time she might leave a ball behind is if it's a bad bobble and it rolls too far out of her lane. But in that one race she dropped the ball after the first jump coming back from the box, in the first two heats. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that this race was in the rightmost lane of the right ring, which was adjacent to the crowd (see photo), so maybe she was distracted? Strange though since she had run in that lane on Saturday and had no problems. Oh well -- aside from those two goof-ups there were no other issues all weekend, and hardly any bobbles. I was happy with her times which were 5.4s and 5.5s when the pass was decent.

Going into the tournament Lucy needed only 100 more points (i.e. four heats under 25 seconds) to get her next flyball title, so she is now Lucy, Flyball Master. Oooo, doesn't that sound impressive? My best-time-5.2 hound mutt is a Master of Flyball! Funny eh.

Oh and a professional photographer took AMAZING photos of all the dogs so there's *finally* a nice shot of Lucy jumping in flyball! Lucy has an awkward jumping style so her flyball jumping photos usually come out looking not so great. But he got a really nice one of her stretched out which will be posted here when I get a copy of it. In the meantime, here are a few more very unprofessional photos:

The setup for the two-ring flyball tournamement.

The cat show cats had some pretty fancy-looking crate setups. Do you think I'd get any strange looks if I dressed up Lucy and Walter's crates like this at our next agility trial or flyball tournament? :-D

We stayed at the Auberge Royal Versailles, an easy eight-minute drive away. Perhaps not quite as fancy as that cat's digs, but I would definitely stay there again - the room was huge, with a reasonable rate of $107 per night including taxes. Lucy and Walter were superstars and have come so far in the hotel manners department. Not a single peep out of either of them the whole time. It would appear that gone are the days of having to keep them leashed the whole night so that when the slightest noise caught their attention I could grab them quickly and shove food in their faces to keep them quiet!

1-day NAFA tournament (Montreal)

Lucy and I were thrilled to be joined by two of our teammates who made their official racing debut! Of course, Lucy's best flyball buddy, Sammy, was there too. Here's the video from our last two races.

First practice at new location

As of the start of this month our club now practices at a new location that's quite a bit closer for most of us. Due to agility I've missed the first two practices so this was our first time here.

This was also the first day we tried using some new stride regulator props to help get Lucy to land/takoff between jumps rather than right on top of the jumps. Today she just did recalls with the props in place.

Also we tried a new adjustable fake box today to help one of our dogs figure out how to pick up the ball and turn at the same time. Today it was on the flattest setting and she was doing just great with it.

Region 20 Co-Host NAFA tournament (Carp)

This was the first ever co-hosted tournament in Region 20 and Lucy and I were happy to be a part of it as well as helping organize it. Lucy ran on OTB's open team, running in fourth, same as in August. Again she was running slow, with times often in the 5.8 range, even with the jumps still at 7".

Oh! But the great part is she did some really great tugging on Sunday with a non-treat tug! Usually we just use her treat tug and as long as she grabs a hold of it then I'm a happy camper. Well, for some reason the thought occurred to me Saturday night "hey, why not try the new water-bottle-tug I bought at Guides Canins in August?". Then I thought "no, the sound of the crunching bottle would be too loud and be an unfair distraction to the other dogs." Then I thought, "well, flyball is so noisy as it is, and lots of people use squeaky toys as flyball motivators without causing any problems." So we gave it a go on Sunday, and she LOVED it! She ran a couple of full races with the bottle tug only, no treats in the lanes at all. After that though her enthusiasm for it started to fade so we went back to the treat tug. Still, while it lasted it was great and she was really tugging hard. Will definitely use it again at the next tournament.

POF NAFA tournament (Carp)

Lucy ran on OTB's open team, running in fourth and passing into height dog Keno. A few bobbles on Saturday but she figured herself out by Sunday. Like in the July tournament, her times were slower than they were in May, not sure if it's due to the heat or what.

FBI's "Come Fly in July" NAFA tournament, Navan

Lucy ran as part of the Burnin Rubber team in Regular 2. The lineup for most of the tournie was Glimpse (speedy little height dog setting the jumps at 11"), Maya (beautiful blond rescue bc mix), Lucy, and Sammy. Blink joined us for the last race. Everyone ran really well and we took home some very pretty third place ribbons. It was pretty hot and muggy outside and even more so inside, so that might have been a factor in Lucy posting slower times than normal. Usually she easily gets 5.5 with the pass but this weekend when I looked at the times they were often in the 5.7-5.8 range though with some 5.4s in there too. Could also be that some of the passes were wide as we didn't have a pass-caller, and/or the jumps being higher than she's been jumping lately.
Anyway she was a very good dog and the only flags she got were for a couple of hot passes.

The highlight was the open practice held in the racing lanes Saturday evening where a bunch of our team's green dogs came out to play and did just fantastic!! :-)

NAFA tourney in Trenton; Lucy gets a new title

Lucy and Sammy raced with an open DGB team at the beautiful Community Gardens in Trenton. The lineup was Chaos (a Dutch Shepherd from Pawzie Traction who got not one, but two perfect .000 starts!), Lucy, Sammy, and Envy (mini aussie who set the jump heights at 10"). The team ran very cleanly and got tons of points. Lucy picked up her FDCh-G title and a cool handmade memento to mark the occasion. She ran a nearly flawless tournament (just one bobble) and for once I didn't make her do any hot passes, so for once we didn't cause a single flag. Lucy was her usual steady self.

I changed how I release her. Instead of a hand on the collar and one at her waist, I hold her waist only with both hands. This has the benefit of keeping my feet out of her way, and I'm hoping this will better enable her to crouch down. Might try in practice working up to lifting her feet onto mine as I saw lots of people do, but I'm not sure how that will work.

One last note about the tugging situation: She's at the point now where she happily drops the ball to latch onto the treat tug, which she did every time. But, no real tugging yet, and I'm not pushing it for now, although she was tugging well outside the ring for a little bit.

DGB's "Go Ballistic" NAFA tournament (Carp curling rink)

Lucy and Sammy raced on an open team with speedy little bc Maxi and the reliable veteran Idgie who set the jump height at 8" for us. For most of the tournament the lineup was Sammy, Lucy, Maxi, Idgie. Jasmine made her tournament debut as warmup dog and did great with her recalls.

Lucy not only ran the whole tournament clean (except for a few hot passes, my fault), but for the first time ever she didn't bobble a single ball, 32 heats over the course of the tournament. Yay!

When she passed into Sammy, releasing her at 36-37 was avoiding hot passes but I'm not sure how tight the passes were or weren't.

When she did starts (last two races on Sunday), I released her on the last yellow at about 26 feet. Whenever she does starts again I'd like to try backing her up and starting on the second yellow. It was kind of funny, kind of annoying, that when she was moved to starts, she kept leaning to the left while waiting to be released, since she was so used to leaning to the left to move into the lane after Sammy flew past her.

Here's a photo taken at last weekend's tournament. Is it just me, or does she vaguely resemble a kangaroo in this pose?

Oh and I boxloaded one race for another team. It was fun and neat to see a different perspective on the dogs.

Paws On Fire "Rescue Me" U-Fli tournament

Our first tournament since September! It was the first annual Paws on Fire "Rescue Me" U-Fli tournament. The fantastic thing is that all proceeds from the tournament go to rescue! Kudos to POF for a fantastic idea. A local tv news station filmed a piece about the tournament, viewable here.

It was also the debut of our home team, the first time Sammy and Lucy have had the opportunity to run on the same team at the same time. It was a pickup team with two guest dogs and the lineup was Sammy (who did a great job at her first time in starts), Lucy, Niki (an awesome little german shepherd/corgi mix height dog rescued from homelessness in Iqaluit), and Blink (a very charismatic rescue mix working hard to overcome her issues) in anchor. Milo made his tournament debut as warmup dog and looked like a total pro doing his recalls and full runs. Short-but-fast little Niki set the jump height at the minimum 6". Special thanks to Jasmine's human who did a terrific job as first-time boxloader, and to two other teammates who took detailed stats for every race.

Lucy ran clean the whole tournament except for her one and only bobble which resulted in her missing a jump. Well, she did get flagged for some hot passes, but that was my fault, not hers. :-) Her times were in the 5.2-5.3 range when the pass was relatively tight, and she set a new personal best time: 5.222 (previously 5.241... funny how we flyball folk can get excited about such miniscule time improvements!) including the pass into Sammy.

On Saturday, releasing her from 30-32 feet mostly resulted in good tight passes. On Sunday, releasing her from 35-37 feet was necessary to avoid hot passes.

Reviewing video from today's races reminds me that Lucy's flyball striding is terribly inefficient. The peak of her arc is midway between jumps rather than over the top of the jumps, so she's practically landing on top of each jump, coming down within inches of each one. If we can get her striding over them properly she could shave a bit off her time.

The photographer captured several nice shots of Lucy, viewable here (pages 7 and 8).

The weather was beautiful: sunny and warm with an unseasonal high of 22 degrees.

Team practice; getting ready for U-Fli

Our flyball team will be making its debut at the U-Fli tournament in April. Woo hoo! It will be a pickup team consisting of Sammy, Lucy, and two guest dogs from other teams. One of those guests joined our practice today, running into Lucy. Passes were kept wide but Lucy was just fine with it.

Supplementary team practice at K9 Sense

Gearing up for the tournament debut of some of our flyball team's up and comers, our team is having a few extra practices at a different location to help the dogs learn to generalize flyball (which they have done like total pros). With a few tournaments coming up in the near future Lucy could use a change of flyball scenery too so I brought her tonight and she raced head to head with Tucker and Zara. All the dogs did great :-)

Team practice

Lucy did head to head full runs against Z. and Tk. for the first time. The two greenies acted like seasoned pros, taking a look at Lucy at the start line but never so much as thinking about crossing over.

Team practice

At today's practice we had Lucy and Sammy race head to head, giving Lucy a nice big head start because Sammy loves to race (unlike Lucy who seems utterly oblivious to the fact that there's a dog running in the other lane). When Sammy has a fast dog to race against, or if she's behind the dog in the other lane, she picks up so much speed racing to the box that she has trouble coordinating herself at the box/ball. Took us a while before we realized this because our team doesn't have a speed demon dog. Anyway, giving Lucy a headstart worked like a charm, and Sammy was flawless, running fast and not only catching up to Lucy but even passing her several times!

BREAKING NEWS: At today's practice, 3 of our up and comers completed several beautiful, totally independent full runs with gutter but without a knee, some with the box partially sprung!! Yay!

Yearly review of goals

Here's what I wrote this time last year:

"My goals for Lucy's 2007 flyball year are for her to regain her straight return pass, prove herself in head-to-head racing with strange dogs, do more tugging with her treat tug, and race if a possible opportunity materializes. Mostly I just want to keep having fun with her and watch/help our flyball team continue to develop!"

I'm happy to report that all of those goals were met, and I'm especially happy about the passing one. For 2008, I'd like to see her tug drive continue to improve, and to see the racing debut of our home team.