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I've made the leap and integrated all of Lucy and Walter's blogs into one single blog. So from now on, updates on Lucy's flyball fun will be at www.muttsandaklutz.blogspot.com. Hope to see you there.

FBI U-Fli tournament (Navan)

Lucy ran only in Singles and Pairs this weekend. Her previous best singles time was 5.5, which she smashed in her singles race on Saturday: 5.2! That race was one of the funnest flyball moments I've had with her. She was running as fast as she ever has and luck was with me in getting some really good start times.

She also ran in Pairs with her best dog friend Sammy. It was Sammy's retirement tournament as she will be pursuing other ventures such as agility and helping look after her new human brother. Lucy and I will definitely miss Sammy and her human in the flyball lanes. Sammy and Lucy learned the flyball ropes together, with house league in Kingston in the winter of 2006-2007 and then graduating on to singles/pairs at U-Fli in their first tournament in April 2007. It was a fun journey; we wish Sammy all the best in her other pursuits!

POF's "Rescue Me" U-Fli tournament

Lucy ran half a spot at this for-charity tournament. She ran second into height dog Sadie, followed by mini aussie Tag and bc Tylor.

Lucy ran all four of her races clean and didn't bobble at all. When the pass was snug her time was 5.4. Lucy earned her TF-1 title.

Our clubmates Tashtego, Tucker, and Zara made their official U-Fli debut running in singles and pairs!

Flyball goals

The goals I had set for Lucy's 2008 flyball year were "to see her tug drive continue to improve, and to see the racing debut of our home team". I guess there has been a wee bit of progress in the first in that she loves her new water bottle crunchy tug, although her enthusiasm for it lasts for only one race. That's ok though. Lucy's a food hound through and through and I'm good with that. As for the second, that goal was achieved in November. Yay!

For 2009 I really don't have any goals, other than to keep having fun with Lucy in the flyball lanes.

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!! :-)