Wimbledon Whizzers Winter Warmer

Well i managed to convince everyone that driving to Wimbledon was not actually that far for a tournament so we finally got to race again. It was the Wimbledon whizzers first tournament and they did a fantastic job. We had one starters team entered and decided to run Barney (X breed), Frazzle (Toller), Salsa (Goldie), Alfie (Staffie), Angel (Staffie) and Cai (Collie). Over the last week or so we have been walking the other dogs with Cai so he can get used to them as he is not great with dogs he doesn't know. This has worked really well and now i can do tight changeovers and don't have to panic about catching him so quickly as he goes over the finish!

They had 3 divisions of open before the starters so we didn't start racing till it was dark but the flood lights and marque worked really well and we were protected even when i started to snow. I did start to panic a bit when i saw that they had just put one small strip of netting round the jumps and NOTHING else!! All our dogs can run really well without netting but i worry about dogs crossing into our lane when Cai is running and panic that i cant catch him in time before he sees that it is open between us and the other teams dogs. I was so worried i nearly pulled him out and swapped him for Campbell who will 'do' flyball but only because i ask nicely and in his own time. Cai is over 2 seconds faster and our best dog by far so decided to be brave and go for it and wow how good was he. He didn't look at the other team once and got followed up the lane by one of our own dogs who then tried to grab the ball out of his mouth and he did nothing. I even started to call him further back from the finish before catching him and he was still perfect. He has come on so much this year and i now feel we could run in open as a team.

The other dogs all did very well Frazzle did the box in competition for the first time and got faster as the day went on. Angel didn't put a foot wrong and didn't drop one ball which has been a problem before and Alfie was really flying but got very overexcited and kept going back for a second ball even if there was another dog on the lane. No one could catch him so i think we will need to teach him to come back to a tuggy so that you get more than one second to grab his harness before he is off again! And Salsa ran in competition for the first time and was really good, she was fast and only messed up on the very last leg when she decided to say hello to the box loader.

We got our best time ever of 21.7 seconds and were only beaten in one race so ended up in a fantastic second place. I have been saying since we started racing as The Power Paws that i wouldn't put us into open tournaments till we can do 22 seconds so it looks like we will be entering open soon. Cant Wait.

Cai, Barney & Alfie