Alpha Dogz ran a fab tournament this weekend at Home Farm. Five divisions in 1 ring and they were still finished with presentations at 6:30! So organised and the rosettes were lovely, and they did special keyrings for the dogs in Starters which were fantastic.

Dylan was so naughty in his Starters team, I could have lynched him but he’s too adorable and happy. He ran up and down but that’s never been a problem for us, but that dreaded slammer’s turn was back!

I thought we nailed it after last week at Doncaster where he was 100% all day, but this weekend he was awful. We did forget his cone but he did some perfect turns around a water bottle before he ran, but then as soon as we took it away he was rubbish again. I was resigning myself to another three months in Starters with him!

He was down as emergency 5th dog for our depleted Barking team on Sunday, but we weren’t expecting him to run. We had always planned for him to go in with the team and do some warm-up runs, because it was his first time without netting in the arena and although we never really thought he’d have a problem, you can never be 100% sure. Jane brought the spare cone and we gave him a couple of runs in the 2mins warm up on every race, and he was doing his lovely turns again, and then he toodled off outside to wait whilst the pro team of Mollie, Kim, Stripe and Lolly raced their socks off. We knew before we ran that we didn’t really have a chance as our seed time had been set with Barney’s dogs Floss and Jet, so we were at least 0.5-1 second off the pace. We actually came 3rd in the end and did beat some teams, which was a nice surprise!

Anyway, we were losing to Cheshire Set by quite a way (they were running 19.60’s, I think the best we did was 20.71!) so Jane decided to put Dylan in to save Mollie. She loves running lead dog but false starts do take their toll eventually! So Dylan made his Divisional debut … after Mollie had a strop and slipped her harness and caused a bit of chaos. She knows when she’s getting pulled and she’s never happy about it! Mum took over running Kim, and off we went.

Well he ran up and down and did a textbook turn and I was so proud! He got a couple of runs against Cheshire and Dog Friendly’s who we really didn’t have a chance of beating. But Dyl’s turn was absolutely perfect on every run, I was so proud of my boy. Katie did an awesome job boxloading for him! The splits showed he ran a 5.1 but I still feel like he’s got some to give, that competitive spirit hasn’t kicked in yet and he’s not running anywhere near flat out. The 13″ jumps suited him well though, he looked a lot better over them than the 10/12″ he’s been running in Starters.

It only rained heavily once, but naturally it was right before the second half of our division. All our dogs can run in mud (Mollie and Lolly actually seem to prefer it!) but Kim drops about a ¼ second off her normal pace. She runs best indoors, and if we’re outdoors it’s ideally on sun-baked rock hard ground. Not enough to make a huge difference to our times, but enough to make her splits look slow and make me sad because as soon as she seems to be slowing down I just start thinking it’s her age, which leads me to think she’s getting old and then I get sad. She’s not old, she’s only 7, and she can still kick ass. It’s not age, it’s the weather, I have to remember that! Kim doesn’t do rain, she can’t bear getting all wet and ruining her good looks.

Finally, I did not get a light all day with Kim or Dylan. I don’t want to brag about my changeovers (except I totally do, because I am really good at changeovers!) because to balance it out I really sucked at going first, I need some serious training. My starts were way off! Mum got a 0.00 with Mollie and Andrea got 2 or 3 with Norah, which actually just goes to show how hard it was on this set of lights. Andrea normally gets at least a quarter of her starts dead on, and even when she doesn’t she’s rarely over 0.1 off. Mum isn’t too shabby either, particularly as Mollie doesn’t always run lead so it takes her a couple of goes to get her eye in. But I wasn’t even close — I think 0.1?? was my closest, but more like 0.2+. Shameful!

The Crazy Cannons always put on a good tournament but we’re not usually very successful! Kim has a 2nd rosette from about 2 years ago and that’s it, which is a shame because the pink and black rosettes look very swish! We got our act together this year and the Owlers had a fantastic day. It definitely helped that unlike the rest of the country, we were all absolutely frozen and never saw any sunlight. Mollie and Dylan were very appreciative!

Mollie was in Division 7, back with her old team Night Owlers. They came 2nd in the end and had a great day’s racing, and finally broke the magic 22 seconds to hit 21.73 — when I was handling! My mum slipped and hurt her knee, and as she was due to run Murphy in the second half of Div 1 later, I said I’d run Mollie for the final 3 races. Mollie also picked up her Graduate award, in a lovely frame that Jane organised. Thank you guys!

Kim was running in Div 4 with her normal team, but down to 4 dogs and with a bit of a switched round line-up! We had Jet down from Barneys and Lolly up from Nights, and with old pro’s Kim and Buffy. They all ran really well, 13″ jumps all day and Kim was so consistent! I’m very proud of her, she ran just under 5 seconds all day in a 7 team division. We ran around 20 seconds all day so plenty of points, about 350-400 I think, which is a nice addition to our goal this year to reach 10,000 points. Sadly I think we’re losing speedy Jet to become a permanent Barney addition, although we do get gorgeous Brooke in the swap so not too bad!

Dylan was running in Starters again, and his Little Owlers team were brilliant. Dylan’s box was still pretty bad but he didn’t make any serious mistakes and we did get a couple of practise runs with the cone in and showed everyone what a cracking turn he can have! His turn makes all the difference, I think if we can get his turn sorted he’ll be running sub-5 second times which will suit him nicely. Just one problem - Dylan is just like his dad and likes running as lead dog, I think someone should tell him that I can’t do the lights! He really shifted up a gear running first, less for him to think about and he focussed a lot faster. We definitely had an improvement since last time though, and he kept going consistently all day, just a bit quicker when he was lead dog. I’m more concerned about my dogs running consistent times than throwing up an odd faster one, it plays havoc with seed times and means they can’t settle in a team properly. I’d be thrilled if Dylan somehow pulled off a 4.3 but it would hardly be very good for whatever team he was in! I think the team ran a 23.?? in the end, so not too bad considering we weren’t running changeovers or starts!

I was also scribing for Barneys so didn’t get a moment’s rest all day, and I mean that quite literally! When I was actually running a dog I was helping with one of the other teams, so I was absolutely exhausted when we got back last night. I wasn’t the only one either, as mum normally just has Mollie to run and then helps out, but she had the additional task yesterday of running Brooke and Murphy! James is off on his stag weekend and mum started off running Brooke for the first couple of races, and then swapped to running Murphy. Her first time running either dog and in Div 1, and her changeovers were absolutely perfect!

Photos from Sunnyside Photography http://www.sunnyside-photo.co.uk/

Well, I’ve never flyballed in the snow before.

Barking Owlers came 2nd in their Division, although to be honest we really didn’t expect to. The Beardies came into season this week and had to drop out, so we were left with four competitive dogs, plus Chewy. On the day, we also lost one of our handlers as Craig was called into work after the first race, so we had to bring in someone who had never handled in open competition before, and had never run Meg. Jo’s Dad did brilliantly considering, but obviously we weren’t as gelled as normal and Meg had to run as lead dog, which she doesn’t like, and Mollie had to run as second dog, which she doesn’t like!

Kim ran brilliantly all day, she was absolutely faultless. I couldn’t have asked for more from her! But as a team we just couldn’t muster much enthusiasm and the tournament just wasn’t that great. We ran some miserable times, I think our fastest was 20.55 and our slowest was over 22 seconds, which was very disappointing from a team that normally runs sub-20. We were really hoping to get Mollie the 204points she needed for her Graduate award, and we just scraped it; thanks to Julie for counting up at the end, and Jane for offering to get her a few runs at Drax if she hadn’t made it. Go the Mol! Our division was also cut to the minimum of 4 teams as Dog Friendly and Hillam had to pull out at the last minute due to Kennel Cough, so even our 2nd place didn’t feel like much of an achievement.

Video to come …

I was scribing for Barney Owlers in Division 1 who were also down to 4 dogs, as Norah the SuperBeardie was out along with our Buffy. Jet had to step in as lead dog, with a completely new handler who had never done the lights before! Having said that, James got some awesome start times, cutting it down to get a best of 0.01 … impressive! The team did an 18.46 but were mainly running low 19 second times most of the day, which again was disappointing. Jet tried her best but she just wasn’t running the kind of times she normally does, being off by 0.4-6 seconds, but I think she found it hard work running in all the heats. It’s a lot of fun getting to be on the line though!

Dylan also got to play at CleverDogs! I was more interested in letting him work on different equipment than really going for a time with him, which worked out quite well because we only got one recorded time in the end! He clocked a 23.– in the Starters division, not too bad. I was more concerned that he ran the course well, and he did, but boy was he a tired dog! Nothing like his normal speed and enthusiasm. Teams are allowed some time to practise on the course before being timed, so I got a chance to play with Dylan a bit first. I really need to work on being clearer with my commands, but we got some work done on rear crosses and I even layered in a jump at one point, which Dylan didn’t mind at all, although it didn’t exactly achieve the intended and Dyl still took off back towards the weaves!

The CleverDogs was being run by some of the people from the British Agility Association, and I’m apparently a recognisable name now because I was asked whether Dylan was the dog I won everything with or if I had another. I had to confess Dylan was only the baby and Kim was off flyballing today, otherwise she’d have come and done some CleverDogs too.

The weather was awful all day, but we clearly didn’t have the worst of it. All the outdoor agility shows have been cancelled, including the huge Dashin Dogs show. But the tournament just felt very ‘meh’ … nobody could muster any enthusiasm to run, possibly because so often we were against an empty lane, but mainly because the atmosphere was just dead. Other teams seemed to be feeling the same way as us, and I’m not sure if we’ll be doing Carlton Towers next year. The first year I went (2004), Kim was running in her first ever open tournament and we came 3rd in the division, only to be told that the rosettes weren’t available and we wouldn’t get any. I know there are problems with every tournament but that was the standard the first year I went, and it seems to have got worse every year since. There are other competitions on Easter Weekend and right now, even the cancelled ones seem more appealing!

I got three lights for early changovers too, which is appalling. I haven’t done that for months!

Thanks to Cat Clark of http://www.themodernlove.co.uk/ for providing the photos of Dylan in this post and the last, and for the videos. Also thanks to Jess for allowing us to borrow her camera to film the Barking Owlers.

The boy did good … ish!

Our lovely team the Little Owlers were in Division A, and we won two of six heats so not too shabby! We weren’t the fastest team in the world as we weren’t really bothering with changeovers, but all our dogs ran brilliantly

Dylan handled the pressure fantastically, he took it all in his stride and was absolutely raring to go. He was even running some fairly close changeovers with Amber towards the end, with only a bit of hesitation. He’s going to be pretty quick when he gets going too, which is great!

The only problem we had today was his box, and I’m really disappointed. All the training we’ve done just went completely out the window, he was effectively stopping in front of the box and taking the ball out before turning round, which of course messed up his stride for the return runs. Julie and I spent quite a while debating what to do! I think it’s going to be pretty much what I’d expected, which is to pull Dylan from all possible competitions until his box is perfect. I’m not willing to ruin his chance to have a perfect swimmer’s turn just to get some points or whatever — because he can do the turn, and it is absolutely perfect when he does it!

Anyway, video! It’s pretty noisy (as flyball always is!) so be careful if you have the speakers on. Also, keep an eye on the other lane in the first race, you might spot the stunning Elliot from Ruffdogs kicking our ass.

http://www.undermybed.co.uk/images/littleowlers.wmv

(This video may go up on youTube sometime next week … for now it’s only available via the download link. It’s quite a big file, just to warn!)

There’s another version of the same first race here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pUfb0FlnAAU

The undoubted star of the day was Chip, who just got better and better and better. He was unbelievably focussed and he an old pro at recalls and changeovers by the end of the day! He is going to be a serious one-to-watch, I can’t wait to see some Chip/Murphy Lurcher Pairs later this year.

I love Sheffield tournaments. The Speeders are a great bunch of flyballers and they always run a good competition, with lovely rosettes and fast results. The venue is great, just a shame about the location. Three cars were broken into in the morning just after we arrived, including one of our ‘Owlers cars, which was the only real problem with the whole day.

Kim was running in Barney Owlers, the top team. The lovely Brooke is still banned from tournaments until she learns to turn properly on the box, and so Kim was taking her place. Unfortunately that meant my little lady had to do 13” jumps all day! She actually did very well, clocking some fantastic 4.7second singles times that I was very pleased about, but towards the end of the morning she was really tiring, I just don’t think she can cope anymore with that height of hurdle all day, so it will be a relief when she goes back to running with Barking over 10”!

Mollie was running in Barking Owlers again, in her favourite spot as lead dog. She ran very consistent singles times at around 5 seconds for most of the day, with a couple of 4.9’s, but we know she runs slower indoors so very pleased with those! I ended up running Jess in the morning as Craig couldn’t make it, but I just could not persuade that little hound to bring her ball right back and over the line. So I ran Meg in the afternoon, which worked out a lot better except when I had to run as lead. I cannot do those lights! Barking did really well, coming 4^th in the end, but obviously without Kim and with poor Jess and Meg suffering me as a handler half the time so a very decent result!

Nights stormed home to win their division, and Lolly ran absolutely brilliantly – she was running the same singles times as Kim! I can’t wait to see how she does this summer; she’s really one of the rising stars at Owlers. Eagles also did well but some of our baby dogs had a few confidence issues this time around, so just a well-deserved 4^th.

Nice to be home before 9pm too!