This was the best way to spend Valentine’s Day. I drove the dogs up to Castle Hill and we ranged all over the footpaths; Mollie interrupted all the snuggling teenagers and Dylan tried to knock people over as he raced past. Kim was on her own mission, which involved digging up as many moles as she could find. She didn’t find any, but it’s always worth a shot.

Mollie did try and adopt herself out to several families who were out for a Sunday stroll, but none of them would take her home. Poor Mol, she’s stuck with us! I did have to send my dad to go and fetch her back after she latched on to a certain couple who were throwing a ball for their own dog, a very patient Collie/Staffie cross. Dad returned carrying her, because she wouldn’t actually leave them alone. She was looking plaintively over his shoulder, but as soon as her paws hit the floor she was off, racing Kim down the banks.

The fitness regime is kicking in, and all the gang are starting to get their streamlined figures back. Dyl has lost almost everything he gained, and his ribs are almost back to touch. Mollie still looks like a bit of a bear, but it’s her fluffy winter coat, and “Fat Rolls Kim” has her waistline back, although her belly is still clinging. It’s hard to get the old ladies to shift their fat.

We did two lazy circuits of the hill, and the dogs did at least six mad laps of the hill. We all stood and watched a bit of the rugby going on below, and then wandered up to the castle for a nosy. It wasn’t open today, otherwise I’d have got some photos from the top. The lovely sunshine had all gone and the clouds were rolling in, so we came home a bit early and didn’t let the dogs blast over the kite field. I don’t think they minded so much.

I think Dylan wishes every day could be Valentine’s Day.

A whatnow?

Mollie takes her pick …

Dylan’s takes his …

And Kim gets what’s left.

This tournament was a bit of a upside/downside; our dogs all ran really well, but it was almost embarrassing how unfit they are!

Kim and Mollie’s team went from running 20.86 in their third leg race (um, seeded on 21.60, sorry about that Division 6!) to barely getting under 22s in their afternoon races. Same dogs, same handlers, tighter changeovers, but we had some enormously tired dogs running! We finished 3rd overall, but it was a close-run thing.

Mollie came up a little lame after the last race, but thankfully we have some walking pharmacies in the team and so she had an anti-inflammatory and has come back as good as new. She has a tendency to get a little bit stiff in the cold/damp anyway, and she doesn’t slow down like a normal dog would if she’s feeling pained (so it’s very difficult to notice!). She’s right as rain and sound today, so doesn’t appear to be a “real” injury.

Dylan has somehow put on weight since last week’s Gap Farm because he had to squeeze into his harness this time around. He showed a lack of fitness too; he ran well all day, threw in some nice box turns, but he just didn’t feel as fast as he normally is. However, flyball-crazy-fever has set in with my little man. He has gone from standing quietly waiting for his turn to run, to lunging, barking and nearly pulling me over when the first dog goes. He’s obviously been talking to Jet! Thankfully he drops his head and focusses when the second dog goes, but this is why I dread having to run him second. Fingers crossed we can stay as third or anchor for the moment!

Canine Fitness Regime starts this week; we have nearly 8 weeks before the next tournament. I expect them all to be at least 0.5s quicker at Rotherham in March!

The All-New Singing-Dancing Matting: Was good. It’s like yoga matting, kind of. Very grippy, no slipping, very nice. My only complaint was that I’m not sure it works all that well on sand/equestrian surface. It was very “dead”; there was plenty of give but there was very little bounce back. It didn’t seem to affect the larger dogs, but the smaller dogs (especially the height dogs (?)) seemed to be throwing lower times than I normally expect. I’m looking specifically at Kim and Bailey, who seemed to be about 0.5s off their usual times. None of our dogs are as fit as they normally are, but they all ran with enthusiasm, so perhaps it was just a case of height dogs struggling over (their) full height.

It didn’t look to be running any faster times than normal. I think our teams met their seed times or possibly slightly exceeded them, but we were running a slightly different lineup to normal. I’ll be interested to see what everyone else thought!

Anyway, the girls ran well as they always do; Mollie was really raring to go, she ran brilliantly all day. Eagle Owlers (Mollie and Kim’s team) won their division, although they was some close racing to do it! I think the girls quite like running with lovely Chippins, and he looked so settled and enthused running with them.

Dylan was quite excited about the whole thing, he loves running with dogs he knows and he was running with old friends in Lucy, Bailey, Buddy and Stripe. I really enjoy running Dylan with these four, they’re all fairly evenly matched on singles times, we all gel together well as a team and because we’ve all been flyballing for years, we can switch the order around as necessary and still maintain tight changes. Perfect! We were on for the win until we lost the plot against Hinkley, we all got a light in one leg or another and so we knew we had to beat Wilmslow in the last race of the day. We got our act together and we ran as well as we could, but Wilmslow just had faster dogs in and beat us by a well-deserved nose. So 2nd place for the Nights, oh well!

Doncaster next week, just checked the lists and it looks like we have whole different set of dogs, so we’ll have some different line-ups and who knows what will happen!

Obviously inspired by the flickr group 52WeeksforDogs. Unfortunately they have capped the membership due to the influx of people wanting to take on this challenge, but I’m going to use their rules anyway and play along at home.

1. Only ONE photo per week of the SAME dog; no video (sorry). the group’s “week” is defined as Monday 12am to Sunday midnight … if you miss, sorry, there is no playing catchup.
2. Photos must be taken within the CURRENT WEEK
3. If you miss a week due to vacation, sorry … no back-posts to the pool. The rules are pure and simple.
4. Be creative; make that one photo your little project each week.
5. And my one, lonely addition: no edits or crops. I know I can improve my shots through Photoshop, but I want to push myself to get good photographs straight out of the bag.

I had kind of fixed on Dylan for my subject in 2010, because I have already decided Kim’s year will be 2011 – she’s 10 years old, it seems fitting – but then, there’s Mol. Mollie doesn’t get a lot of blog time, and she is such an amazing dog. I went out to take some photos in the snow this week, focussing more on Dylan with the vague idea of starting this project. But when I got back, there were some shots of gorgeous Mollie just being her cheeky, naughty and lovely self, and I thought … why not? She deserves some dedicated Mol-time, so this can be it: Mollie is my 2010 dog.

Week One