Shooting Stars Flyball Tournament

Well today was amazing! I ran Campbell in division A with another team called the Terrierists who are a staffie only team. They are just amazing and can really show the collies how its done. They had a space so we joined them just so i could see how he is doing as flyball has never been that exciting to him.... well he surprised me! He loved every minute of it and only made a few mistakes at the end when he was very tired. Considering it wasn't even a box he has used before he did really well. We ended up 6th but that was due to the other dogs in the team making mistakes so i really think ill have to run him in some open tournaments next year.

It was then Cai's turn in division B. It was only the Power Paws second time out and some of the dogs had only been training with us for 3 or 4 weeks! As we came second last time we really were all very nervous as we wanted to do as well this time. There were 7 teams in our division this time so we had 6 other teams to race against and as it was best of 5 the dogs had a lot of races to do. They all did amazingly though and we won out first 3 races. We then went to check the score board to see how the other teams were doing and to plan which dogs to race in which heats to hopefully beat the remaining teams. We then won out 4th race and got very excited.

The team we raced in race 5 had not won all day so we didnt think we would have a problem there but they shocked us all and beat us! That just left race 6, if we won that we would come 1st so put all our fastest dogs in, Barney the dobe x, Poppy the collie, Frazzle the toller and Cai the flyball monster collie! We then won the first 2 legs and tied the 3rd so as we had then got 3 points the judge said we had won. We went off very excited and couldn't wait for prize giving. We then heard an announcement saying there had been a mistake and we had to go back and do another race as the tied race didnt count!!! Thank god all the dogs pulled out that extra bit of speed required and we won so came 1st overall with a best time of 24 seconds.

Underdogs Flyball Tournament

Well today was our first tournament as the Power Paws Flyball Team. 5 of us went over to Paddock wood to the Underdogs starters Tournament. We were in Division 2 and seeded 2nd which means we submitted the second fastest time in that division so were under a lot of pressure to do well although none of us expected to as i was the only person who had ever been to a show let alone competed in flyball before! The other team members had never even seen how the lights work at the start and as i cant go first with Cai they had to learn pretty quickly! The first few heats were very messy as we were all terrified but the adrenalin soon kicked in and everyone started to get very competitive.

All the dogs were stars and behaved really well, except when another teams dog ran into our side and grabbed the timers cake and ran off with it spreading crumbs all along out lane. Then it was just too tempting to stop and have a sniff and see if there was any crumbs left! Cai was amazing and went like a rocket and quite a few times he had to really run to overtake the last dog in the other team but he did us proud and managed it most of the time and only once did he try to get into the other side. He really is a dog in a million and im so proud of how far he has come. I really hope he copes in open competition as he has come so far in the last few years and i would love to get some of his flyball titles.

Running in the team was Sky, Barney, Angel, Bob & Cai. We did a best time of 26 seconds which is still very slow but fantastic for us and that's with only one collie in the team! We won 4 out of 6 heats but didn't have a clue how the other teams had done so didn't know where we had come. Although we knew it wasn't last, and that had been our only goal that day... not to come last! We went to prize giving and could not believe it when we came second. It was a fantastic day and i think everyone is now officially hooked.