Monday 31 May 2010
Dream Team Starters Tournament
We had one team in today. Not quite the line up i'd planned but due to as few broken dogs and a handler unable to come we ended up running Charlie, Barney, Onyx, Alfie, Florrie and Campbell. After a bit of messing around we actually got Charlie running. We have discovered he can only go first as he needs time to focus or looses the plot. Laura was handling him and did very well considdering she had never been to a flyball show before. She pulled off two perfect starts a 0.01 amd a 0.02 in the afternoon. You cant get much better than that! Onyx was a bit distracted but ran well the times she compleated. Barney and Campbell were obviously tired and Alfie run without any problems. Florrie who just refuses to run in training was a little star and managed 4 good legs with not bad times so there is hope for her yet. We managed a few 23 second times but only won one race. We ended up in a 3 way tie for 3rd and for once won as we had the best time so ended up 3rd. I think most of these dogs are ready for open now so maybe ill be brave and enter two teams next time.
Sunday 30 May 2010
Dream Teams first Flyball Tournament
Well what a weekend! i arrived home exhausted and felt like i needed a week off work to recover. I turned up at Frimley at 7pm on friday night, i got the tent and garden set up quickly then went to help Michelle and Roland with the set up which was mostly done as they had been onsite since 9am that morning. The ground look superb and probably as good as you will get. The arena was almost perfectly level and the grass was short and thick. I couldnt wait to get out there and race our dogs. On Saturday i just had the Power Paws in. It was there first time in open under our own name as we have only run in Multibreed and under the Dream Team name up till now.
I really had no clue what times we would run so submitted 23.80.... Michelle thought i was mad and put us down for 23.20 which was exactly the right thing to do as we ended up running a 22.44 in our first leg of the last race against the Terriorists and would have broken out quite a few other times on 23.80. I didnt realise till that evening that no one on the line noticed we had broken out so although we were actually awarded the win for that leg we shouldn't have been given it. We ended up winning 4 out of 5 races just being beaten by the Terriorists who we couldn't match on speed without breaking out. This put us into 2nd and bettered our time from Wimbledon by 1 second.
We had our usual team of Barney, Poppy, Ben and Campbell running with Maddie as reserve. I also decided a few days before to give Alfie a go as he has been doing so well in training. I felt we would never get a better chance to test him than running against the Terriorists as they know staffies and would be happy to grab him if he ran into their runback area... and probably forgive him if he ran out into there lane! I went and spoke to them before to make sure they were happy for us to run him and they were lovely and said im worrying too much and just to get on and run him. Well that told me! We did run backs with him in a few of the races before and he was so focused so i started to get quite excited. I decided to run Barney, Poppy, Maddie (as she was fresh not having raced all day) and Alfie in the final race. The did a fantastic first leg and got our best time of the day. In the second leg maddie slowed right down and we lost that leg. In the third leg she lay down at the box and just refused to move so i had to pull her and run Ben who by now was quite tired. They managed to pull things back and win the third leg with out second best time of the day. So now it was 2 all and getting quite exciting! Sadly the Terriorists just found that extra bit of speed and beat us on the fifth leg by 0.01 seconds. They were lovely though and came over and gave me a hug and said how well Alfie had done.
On Sunday it was just Cai running. We were in Division 1 as usual. For once i was looking forward to it as we were set to race the Jolly Jumpers who had come over from Belgium. They are the current European record holders and their dogs all have lovely box turns and their changes are just to die for. They were so friendly and i spent quite a bit of time chatting to them about training and managed to get quite a few tips. Lots of them were things i was already doing with our new dogs so feel like we are heading in the right direction. They came to watch Cai run and thought he looked good but feel i can get more out of him so im going to work on some of the things they suggested. They felt i could get 0.2 - 0.3 off his times with work so that would take him down to 3.7 & 3.8's which ive always felt he had in him. Ill just have to wait and see now!
In the first race of the day we managed to pull off a 17.64 which is our best time this year. Unfortunatly for us there was a problem with the lights and they made us re run the whole race so we lost the time and didnt manage anything quite as good all day. We ended up 4th with a best time of 17.77 seconds.
I really had no clue what times we would run so submitted 23.80.... Michelle thought i was mad and put us down for 23.20 which was exactly the right thing to do as we ended up running a 22.44 in our first leg of the last race against the Terriorists and would have broken out quite a few other times on 23.80. I didnt realise till that evening that no one on the line noticed we had broken out so although we were actually awarded the win for that leg we shouldn't have been given it. We ended up winning 4 out of 5 races just being beaten by the Terriorists who we couldn't match on speed without breaking out. This put us into 2nd and bettered our time from Wimbledon by 1 second.
We had our usual team of Barney, Poppy, Ben and Campbell running with Maddie as reserve. I also decided a few days before to give Alfie a go as he has been doing so well in training. I felt we would never get a better chance to test him than running against the Terriorists as they know staffies and would be happy to grab him if he ran into their runback area... and probably forgive him if he ran out into there lane! I went and spoke to them before to make sure they were happy for us to run him and they were lovely and said im worrying too much and just to get on and run him. Well that told me! We did run backs with him in a few of the races before and he was so focused so i started to get quite excited. I decided to run Barney, Poppy, Maddie (as she was fresh not having raced all day) and Alfie in the final race. The did a fantastic first leg and got our best time of the day. In the second leg maddie slowed right down and we lost that leg. In the third leg she lay down at the box and just refused to move so i had to pull her and run Ben who by now was quite tired. They managed to pull things back and win the third leg with out second best time of the day. So now it was 2 all and getting quite exciting! Sadly the Terriorists just found that extra bit of speed and beat us on the fifth leg by 0.01 seconds. They were lovely though and came over and gave me a hug and said how well Alfie had done.
On Sunday it was just Cai running. We were in Division 1 as usual. For once i was looking forward to it as we were set to race the Jolly Jumpers who had come over from Belgium. They are the current European record holders and their dogs all have lovely box turns and their changes are just to die for. They were so friendly and i spent quite a bit of time chatting to them about training and managed to get quite a few tips. Lots of them were things i was already doing with our new dogs so feel like we are heading in the right direction. They came to watch Cai run and thought he looked good but feel i can get more out of him so im going to work on some of the things they suggested. They felt i could get 0.2 - 0.3 off his times with work so that would take him down to 3.7 & 3.8's which ive always felt he had in him. Ill just have to wait and see now!
In the first race of the day we managed to pull off a 17.64 which is our best time this year. Unfortunatly for us there was a problem with the lights and they made us re run the whole race so we lost the time and didnt manage anything quite as good all day. We ended up 4th with a best time of 17.77 seconds.
Sunday 16 May 2010
Wimbledon Flyball Tournament
Power Paws had 1 team entered today in division 8 although we ran under the Dream Team Babes name as i am still planning on running Campbell with them for a while. We were on a declared time of 23.80 which i didn't think we would manage but couldn't declare slower as we needed to race on Sunday and anything slower would have put us on Saturday. Thankfully this actually turned out to be a good time for us as we managed a best time of 23.31 only 0.02 seconds off breaking out! I was very pleased with how the team ran as it was the first time out for Ben and Skye and Poppy ran out every leg at Maidstone which was her first show so i wasn't sure what she would do. Barney was really keen today and crosses so well with Poppy. It took us a while to sort Barneys starts out on the lights because although he is a fast dog the first 15 feet after release he is not consistent so was either very late or very early! Shelly did very well handling Poppy and did quite a few changes that made me flinch but she didn't get a light all day so really impressed me. Also we seem to have fixed Poppy's running out problem as she didn't even think about doing it today.
Ben was running for the first time and although he is slow he is reliable and easy to cross into. Lucy was handling him today and he doesn't run as well for her so was often 20 foot late on his changes but for a first show never having done starters i didn't think that was too bad. Skye got a few runs but has started ball dropping again so i had to pull her out of most of the races. Campbell ran last and has really gone up a gear and is starting to enjoy himself. He hasn't crossed into the other lane for quite a while so hopefully that problem is fixed. We had a couple of dropped balls but much better than the last few shows. He actually managed a 5.19 second run and averaged 5.4 so he is improving! We ended up 5th.
Cai was running with Dream Team Supreme as normal we ended up seeded in division 2 which made a nice change from div 1. He was on top form, i really think the effort i have made to get him fit is paying off. His best time was 3.95 from what i could see but i didn't get most of his times this weekend. We finished in 2nd on a best time of 17.78 which i know we can improve on.
Ben was running for the first time and although he is slow he is reliable and easy to cross into. Lucy was handling him today and he doesn't run as well for her so was often 20 foot late on his changes but for a first show never having done starters i didn't think that was too bad. Skye got a few runs but has started ball dropping again so i had to pull her out of most of the races. Campbell ran last and has really gone up a gear and is starting to enjoy himself. He hasn't crossed into the other lane for quite a while so hopefully that problem is fixed. We had a couple of dropped balls but much better than the last few shows. He actually managed a 5.19 second run and averaged 5.4 so he is improving! We ended up 5th.
Cai was running with Dream Team Supreme as normal we ended up seeded in division 2 which made a nice change from div 1. He was on top form, i really think the effort i have made to get him fit is paying off. His best time was 3.95 from what i could see but i didn't get most of his times this weekend. We finished in 2nd on a best time of 17.78 which i know we can improve on.
Saturday 15 May 2010
Eastbourne Agility Show
This is our main club show for the year so I knew id be running around very busy helping and would probably not run my dogs very well. Cai was entered in all 3 classes, Campbell in 2 and Chico just in Agility. I decided to get Cai’s classes out the way first. We started in the grade 1 – 4 Helterskelter. This was the perfect course for Cai. Spread out and flowing, I knew I had a chance of getting him round clear. He broke his wait and was the other end of the ring before I even had chance to take a breath. Thankfully he was heading the right way so I just cut across the ring to catch up with him. Sadly he went to go in the wrong end of the tunnel and although I managed to call him back he had just put his nose in getting an E. I’m not sure why he did this as it wasn’t the obvious entrance. In grade 1 – 2 Agility he was ok but had lots of poles and was a bit all over the place. Grade 1 – 2 Jumping was last. It wasn’t the easiest course but ran well. He missed his weaves but that didn’t surprise me and went wide on a few jumps but listened so I know with a bit more training we can get it together.
Campbell was up next. I decided to run his Agility first as he is so close to winning out now and if he does I’m guessing it will be in Agility as he has always placed higher in agility as he just can’t match the speed of some collies on the jumping courses. He started off really well with perfect contacts and lovely tight wing wraps but sadly decided to miss his weave entry getting us 5 faults. I was quite disappointed as we have very few agility shows this year as we are concentrating on flyball so have much less chance to win out. I decided to just take him straight into the jumping even though he was puffing as I wasn’t expecting much. Well as usual Campbell proved me wrong. He did a blazing round that felt fairly fast and finished clear. We were one of the first few to go so I didn’t get excited when that put us in 1st. Well my boy did me proud staying in 1st until the end and winning our huge Agility club trophy for highest placed member.
Chico had fun but fell off the dog walk while checking everyone was watching him from outside the ring. I put him back over and he was fine and finished the course in typical Chico Style. Thankfully I have a sense on humor when it comes to this dog!
Campbell was up next. I decided to run his Agility first as he is so close to winning out now and if he does I’m guessing it will be in Agility as he has always placed higher in agility as he just can’t match the speed of some collies on the jumping courses. He started off really well with perfect contacts and lovely tight wing wraps but sadly decided to miss his weave entry getting us 5 faults. I was quite disappointed as we have very few agility shows this year as we are concentrating on flyball so have much less chance to win out. I decided to just take him straight into the jumping even though he was puffing as I wasn’t expecting much. Well as usual Campbell proved me wrong. He did a blazing round that felt fairly fast and finished clear. We were one of the first few to go so I didn’t get excited when that put us in 1st. Well my boy did me proud staying in 1st until the end and winning our huge Agility club trophy for highest placed member.
Chico had fun but fell off the dog walk while checking everyone was watching him from outside the ring. I put him back over and he was fine and finished the course in typical Chico Style. Thankfully I have a sense on humor when it comes to this dog!
Sunday 2 May 2010
Mad Mutts Flyball Tournament
Campbell was running with the Dream Team on Saturday in division 8. He didn’t run very well at his last tournament as he was running 3rd with a dog crossing into him who gets very hyped up and ran from the line barking and screaming. Campbell doesn’t like crossing into a dog he doesn’t know especially one like this and he starts to drop the ball. Sadly he obviously remembered and dropped the ball quite a few times we also had many of the other dogs running out and generally messing around so did well to actually take home a rosette. They finished 4th but it didn’t feel like they deserved it! He did manage a 5.35 second time though and finished on an average of 5.54 seconds which is his best to date. Slow but to be honest better than I ever expected from him
Cai was running in Division 1 which to be honest is starting to get me down a bit. We are now too fast for Division 2 but don’t really stand a chance in division 1 as we just don’t have the dogs. We tried our best all day and even managed to beat the Bassett Hotdogs who are the current British record holders. We didn’t realize how well we were doing though until someone said if we win our last race we will come 1st. Our dogs ran there best but it wasn’t quite good enough and we lost our last race to the top seed in the division. There was a 3 way tie for second which we ended up loosing on time and finally finished 4th. Annoying but on the right day it shows we could pull off something special.
Cai was running in Division 1 which to be honest is starting to get me down a bit. We are now too fast for Division 2 but don’t really stand a chance in division 1 as we just don’t have the dogs. We tried our best all day and even managed to beat the Bassett Hotdogs who are the current British record holders. We didn’t realize how well we were doing though until someone said if we win our last race we will come 1st. Our dogs ran there best but it wasn’t quite good enough and we lost our last race to the top seed in the division. There was a 3 way tie for second which we ended up loosing on time and finally finished 4th. Annoying but on the right day it shows we could pull off something special.
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