Monday, February 09, 2009

Flyball Tournament - indoor!

We had a fantastic day of flyball racing yesterday at Lockmeadow Market, Maidstone. This was one of their winter series host by Ball Busters Flyball Team. It was a very long and tiring day but at the end of the day, everyone was happy, I think.
We got there just before 7:30am and I have plenty of time to walk the dogs and settle in the flyball mood. I was having a mixed feeling when I first got there as the very last time I raced with Sing was in November 2005, the same place; now we are returning to flyball and the first race was here! I was touched by all the Ball Busters members who knows me, they gave me and Sing a warm welcomed back to the Flyball world and I was so glad they remembered Sing as a little cracker!
We have two teams racing yesterday, Wimbledon Whizzers and Wimbledon Woofers. The Whizzers are in Division 3 and the Woofers are in Division 1.
Zak, Bramble, Tally & Blue ran for Wimbledon Woofers. These four are just fabulous, they are jumping full height and gosh don't they zoom in speed!
For the Wimbledon Whizzers, we have Sing, Jed, Maddie, Rupert, Charlie, Alibi. I think the combinations are Sing, Jed, Maddie with one of the other three dogs. Unfortunately Jed was a bit unsure in the first couple of race, so we change the combinations again. I think we have Sing, Maddie, Rupert & Alibi combinations; then later we have one out and Charlie in ... every dogs get to run. We were running so well as a team and support each other. This is the Team work I like, no pressure, purely enjoyment.
Sing ran as a start dog yesterday. Well, did I tell you that that is my very fear? I am always so wind up when comes to racing (or even agility), I am probably worst than any of my dogs. I hate reading the lights as I know I am not persistent and keep changing, I just want to GO GO GO ... and my worst habit is try to predict the light! So, I am not a reliable start dog but I determine to learn!
Oh, I have nearly forgot to mention that they now have a different electronic system to when I was raced. This is just brilliant. The electronic timer will show all the individual time. Ray was taking a record of our running, I think Sing's best start time was 0.9xx seconds and he even had a 1.000second start time but his others was between 2-3 seconds.
I don't know what is Sing's individual best time as I wasn't watching but I kinda look at all the vidoes that Colin took, I saw something between 5.5xx to 5.7xx. I am hoping to build up his stamina in the next few weeks and hopefully we can tune him up to run back faster.
When we were not racing, Colin and I sat by the ringside with one of my not running dog to let them get used to the very noisy environment, Saturn and Sizzle were very good boys. They were busy turning their heads on the racing dogs but after a while they just calmed down. Also, we were watching so many little dogs racing and they can't do a single stride, so that actually made me feel better with Sizzle.
I tried to include every dog in the video:
hehehe ... how can I forget to mention The Whizzers came 3rd in our division!!!
well done everyone and dogs!!

4 comments:

Vonnie said...

I loved the warning on the vid! LOL!! I know how loud it is ourside, inside must have been banging - did you not have a headache! Well done Sing! Good to hear the boys were good spectators!

Sara said...

I had to turn the sound off! Oreo and Misty started barking like crazy!

That was great fun to watch. It really must take a lot of practice to get releasing the dogs timed correctly. The dogs look like they love it, and it is nice to see all the different breeds working together as a team.

Chris and Ricky said...

Congratulations to the Whizzers! Wow - indoor flyball is a very LOUD activity! But looks like everyone and all the dogs were really enjoying themselves!

Anonymous said...

Oh this is awesome!!!! We had to unplug the speakers though, haha. It looks like such fun, we wish we could go to something like that.

Josh and Jessie