Monthly Archives: August 2010

A Mixture of Things

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The dogs are all still flying about at flyball, but I’m looking forward to finally getting back to agility this weekend. After a nailbiting couple of weeks, Dylan has qualified for the Agility and Jumping Finals, and I’ve purposely kept Kim out of the Qualifiers to make sure she doesn’t qualify (although there is a chance she might get called up anyway, unfortunately …). I sound like a horrible person trying to make sure that my dog doesn’t qualify, but the Novice has only 15 dogs in the Final, and I can’t concentrate on Dylan if I have to run Kim as well. And Kim might run brilliantly if she did qualify, but she might be tired and bored and not want to play, and it’s not worth taking someone elses’ spot.

Bark-Run-Bark

We’ve been having some fun recently exploring some new walks, and August has tumbled away without anyone even noticing. Mollie’s eyesight seems to be getting a little worse; it’s hard to say exactly what makes us think so, since there is nothing specific I can explain. Just a feeling that she can’t see as well as she could. Dylan has had some issues that I’ve posted about before, but I finally feel like we’re getting a handle on this and I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made so far. It’s really just a patience game now, and I don’t want to go into too much detail in case I jinx it.

Really wishing the flyball points would go up sometime soon, I am hoping Kim had got her FD-Gold, and I’d really like to see if Dylan is anywhere near his FD-Silver. I thought we might get it before the end of the year, but now I’m not so sure.

What a meandering post! It’s the terrible rainy weather getting me down, lets all hope for an Indian Summer.

7 Things …

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From, of course, Bernadette and the Obay Shelties.

Seven Things you may not know about me:

  1. I hate tomatoes.
  2. I used to ride horses, and the best horse I rode was a chestnut Thoroughbred called Jim.
  3. I live in an attic room.
  4. Although I love my Clio, I hate driving it.
  5. I don’t drink alcohol, but when I do, I still don’t get drunk easily.
  6. I collected the final five Harry Potter books at midnight, and finished them all before dawn the same night.
  7. My first ever competition — flyball — was the day Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was released. We weren’t supposed to be going but they needed another a Starter dog at the last minute. I’d had about an hour’s sleep beforehand.

Seven things you may not know about my dogs:

  1. Kim sleeps in my room. I carry her up the spiral staircase every night!
  2. Mollie does beautiful heelwork, finishes, retreives and positions on the move. (I did not teach her this).
  3. Dylan is always the first dog into his bed at night, and is always the first one up in the morning.
  4. Kim ran away when we were moving house in 2001, and then got stuck behind a 6-foot fence. She has never run away again.
  5. All three dogs think Alfie the Greyhound is the Best Dog Ever.
  6. Three completely random people asked if Dylan was available to stud during the first 12 months of his life.
  7. Kim knocked over two metal candlesticks as a puppy. She was so traumatised by this event that we had to get rid of the candlesticks because she kept attacking them, and 9 years later she still alert-barks when you blow out candles.

Rother… Tyne?

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Tournament at the usual Rotherham venue, but run by Tyne Tailwaggers. Out to confuse me from the start.

Kim and Mollie’s team was a bit of a mix, and we lost pretty much everything, apart from the one race against our arch-rivals Doghouse (to clarify: we love Doghouse). Mollie was running consistent 5.1s over 12″, Kim was also around 5.1s but she did run a 4.9s first thing, which suggests to me that if she’d been against faster dogs she’d have probably been a bit faster herself. She was the height dog as well so she was over her version of full-height, and it was baking hot weather, so very pleased with the girls. The team just didn’t work, sadly, so our times were pretty shocking and it was 3-leg losses all round (sometimes 1 or 2 leg losses, as one of the team dogs has started interfering for the first time in his life).

Dylan was really not feeling well when we got home on Saturday, and eventually we made the decision to pull him from Sunday’s racing. I don’t regret this at all; I know Dylan would have raced had I asked him to, which is why I had to make the decision. By the time we got home on Sunday he was recovering nicely, and is back to his usual chirpy self now. It appears it was just a 24-hour bug, thankfully!

So, we had pulled Dylan, and one of the other dogs Buddy also went lame on Saturday, and with the Beardies (all three!) in season, we ended up scratching one of the teams. About an hour after pulling the Division 2 team Ghost Owlers, George and Jet also couldn’t run (illness and chiro orders, respectively!) so that left poor Murphy all on his own! We recruited a few other NFC dogs, and since Mollie and Kim hadn’t exactly been racing the day before, we let them have a few legs in the NFC team too. Kim ran with Francis, (aged 10 years, already a boxloading/ring-party/vice-captain pro) to let her try running a dog in a team for the first time. Kim was a fab little teacher and Fran did brilliantly too.

Dylan’s original team ran with four dogs — we couldn’t put Murphy in with them as he’s just too fast! — and they got a new seed-time of 19.98 and finished 2nd. Unfortunately there was an incident during the last race and they went down to three dogs, but they still ran their socks off, and I got plenty of photos.

Night Owlers

It wasn’t a great weekend for the teams, but at least it was sunny and the fit and healthy dogs all got to run in the end.

British Flyball Championships 2010

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Thunderstorms and shooting stars, pouring rain and sunshine …

The girls did good. We were in a bit of a weird position, in that we had three dogs who had suddenly gone back to being sub-5s dogs, and then one slower dog who has suddenly gone from clocking 6.5s to 5.5s. However, these are all older dogs, and we knew they were going to get tired over the day. So in the morning, we spent a lot of time holding back our changeovers so we didn’t win too easily and break out, and in the afternoon, we spend a lot of time pushing changeovers to try and keep ourselves in the game. Somehow, it worked, and the Hawk Owlers won Division 32.

Mollie clocked a 4.65s as lead dog, and then ran 4.7′s and 4.8′s and eventually worked her way up to 5s at the end of the day. She’s eleven. That’s so wtf crazy I don’t even know. Kim ran her socks off, she was such a pro and she kicked ass, just like she always does.


(Sponsored by CSJ, can you tell?!)

I nearly cried when we won, everyone was so overjoyed and the whole team was dancing around on a high, even those who hadn’t run a dog. These are our old ladies, our girls, and we never know if they’re going to make it to another Champs, but every year they come back, and they don’t just race, they win. Kim and Mollie have never been to the Champs and not come home with a 1st place. I am so proud of them!

Dylan did good too. The whole team did good, but we couldn’t quite pull it off and lost to Paws8, which put us 2nd. Dylan’s team has never won their division at the Champs … fingers crossed for next year!

Congratulations to Bassetts who retained their Division One title, but hats off to Bristol Ball-istics for the most decisive, brave and calm show of sportsmanship ever seen in Ring 2. One of their dogs was running across the lanes, and they chose to sacrifice their own chances to make sure that the dog didn’t cause any problems for other teams, and to make sure she was running again by the end of the day.