Shooting Stars Flyball Tournament

I always like to enter the Shooting stars tournaments as it was all thanks to them we got going as a team so even though we weren't really ready we headed off down to Kent with 2 brand new dogs, Barney, Angel, Maddie and Campbell. First race in was a bit of a mess, Onyx wouldn't go down and get her ball so we had to run Maddie. She is not running well at the moment as she is really slowing down on the way back from the box since being attacked. She did better this week than last week but still no where near as good as she should be. Thankfully Onyx decided flyball is actually fun and ran fantastic from the second race onwards. Harvey who is Maddie's brother got quite distracted by the dogs in the other lane. When he was running well he was great and when he wasn't.... well he was a pain in the bum! i can really see he has a stubborn streak too like Maddie but also shows so much promise.

Barney was good again this week but has really lost his confidence on the way back. He used to be much faster coming back than going out but that has all changed now. Hopefully with more practice he will get his confidence back. As Maddie was running so slow we had to call in the reserve reserve Campbell. I dont like to run him much as he gets tired quickly and then switches off and isn't really into flyball. He just does it because i ask him nicely! Well apart from dropping the ball once he was actually quite good today. He did some nice starts and also ran in 2nd and 3rd position fine. Hopefully he is starting to enjoy his flyball more and will have more drive and speed as he does more shows.



I really wanted to give Cai a run today as he hates missing out so entered him and Angel into the Mini/Maxi pair just for a bit of fun. I wasn't really bothered about getting a good time as Angel had already run 17 legs in starters and she is not used to crossing tight with Cai. Well we did our three legs in what felt like an ok time and i went and put Cai back in the car. Suddenly after about 10 mins they are calling us back in as we were through to the next round. I hadn't realised it was a knockout so was not ready at all. I managed to grab Cai quickly and leg it back to the ring and couldn't believe it when we went and won again 3-0. This put us through to the finals against Janice and Roger from the Shooting Stars who had two very experienced dogs. The racing was very close but we lost the first two legs and then won the third. As it was best of 3 we came second overall with a best time of 10.34 seconds. I couldn't believe our two managed to pull it off so well. Angel really was best dog of the show this week.