Saturday June 30th 2007 - team practice

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

For her passing exercise, did boxwork with one jump while two dogs were lined up behind the jump - no problems.

Saturday June 23rd 2007 - team practice

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

Stepped it up in her passing exercise where two dogs were lined up pretty darn close to the middle of the lane, and only a metre or two back from the start line, and she did great with her two-jump recalls! Also, for full runs someone else ran her while I stood up close to the box and watched. Her first or second run was good, but after that she started to come to me after doing the turn so I went back and hung out in the lineup area instead.

Saturday June 16th 2007 - team practice

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

Thanks to the keen eyes of our team captain, it was discovered today that Lucy thinks the duct tape startline is there to show her where to take off for the first jump! She's jumping the tape which makes her land way short for all the rest of the jumps going to the box. When we placed a second piece of tape between the start line and the first jump she used the new tape as her guide and so took off at the proper place. In other news, her remedial passing training is coming along really well! Recalls with a couple of dogs in the lineup went well (might be time soon to push it up and put the dogs closer to the centre of the lane), and we tried something new which is using one jump and the box, putting a dog in the "lineup" after the jump so she does a turn with one jump then grabs the ball and back over the jump past the dog.

June 3rd 2007 - guests at another team's practice

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

Passing into one of their experienced dogs went well but she's not at a point where she drives forward into the pass yet.

Saturday June 2nd 2007 - team practice

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

No-jump boxwork with eavestrough "wall" to tighten turn. Her passing exercise with recalls over two jumps went very well today: started with just Milo in the lineup area, held quite close to the lane. Then we had Milo do a recall but only after Lucy passed him. Then we put Milo and Zara in the lineup area. She didn't deek around any jumps. Canned dog food was the treat-du-jour for the passing work.

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!

Saturday April 28th 2007 - team practice

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

Did some recalls and 5 runs over 12" jumps with Lucy first then Sammy. She did her usual going around the last jump thing a few times. Then we did full runs with the cutest, most unthreatening little dog, a guest from another team, Lucy being "passed" by that dog. Out of 6 or 7 runs she went around the last jump twice but I was glad that she was able to do 5 of them correctly even though there was no actual pass happening.