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Monday, January 11, 2016

First Tournament!

Animal House Toga Tournament
January 9th & 10th, 2015

Dante's Debut!



WHEW! What a long weekend, let me start by saying a GIANT THANK YOU to team Animal House for hosting this fun tournament! And another GIANT THANK YOU to our coach over at So Fly, we could not have come this far without you. 

I bet you're all wondering how Dante did? If you follow on Instagram and Facebook you've no doubt seen the spoilers, but now for the nitty gritty details of the weekend!

Technically Dante and I are part of the Apupalyptic Flyball club, and our team name is Pandemic. But being such a new team we don't have our own competing team members yet, Dante and Koira are the only ones ready to race - everyone else is still in training although they are getting close!
Animal House however is the team we started with, so we work side by side with them and helped them to run the tournament over the weekend. 

Racing began at 8 am and check in began at 6:30 am so it was an early morning for us, but coffee in hand and an awesome lens I rented for my camera I felt set! My in-laws were great sports and showed up to watch and help take pictures since I couldn't possibly take them of myself.

On Saturday I was set to race Dante and a Smooth Collie named Ruben, his mom was judging for the day and couldn't race him so she passed him off to me to race to help me gain experience and rack up a few points for him.

Myself and Ruben, he was ready to run!!



Flyball points stick with a dog for the whole time they are in the sport, as you earn points you earn different titles.

For team Pandemic we had six dogs, a racing team only consists of four so we had two alternates in our case. Dante was listed to race but only if he did a clean warm up run, and just in case a dog had to be pulled we had a second alternate. What was great about our team (well one of the many things) is that our team consisted of reliable experienced dogs plus Dante, we weren't a super fast team but it gave Dante a chance to potentially race!

Dante patiently waiting his turn.
On Saturday we had five races, for the first race I took Dante out for his warm up and he was so excited I barely had his brain!

I released him, he took off - hit the box, over turned, and came down the center of the lanes instead of taking the race lane like he was supposed to. He also didn't grab the ball.
That was ok though, FOCUS. So I sent him again, but alas no clean runs and our time was up.

We just kept trying though, and it was great experience for both of us!

Warming up with some tug.
Got to make sure all of his muscles are warm!
First thing for a warm up is to do a "run back", a helper holds your dog at the box and sends your dog to you down the race lane as if they were finishing. It helps to warm up their muscles for running, and reminds them to go OVER the jumps hopefully.

Dante - ready for send off!!!
Running to mom!
He started out running down the lane, hitting the box, over turning (probably because he was looking at all the other dogs around him), and running back to me down the middle (between the race lanes) - not through the lane. 

Dante Over Turning



You can't see it but the ball is in his mouth in these shots!

You can also see that he has over turned, and in the last shot you see he's straddling the line when he should be coming straight down the center of the lane.


He finally straightened out his turn but wouldn't pick up the ball, and then for the last two races he remembered to grab the ball but dropped it way to early.

Each time the team was up to run, Dante got his chance for a clean warm up. Each time Dante got a little bit closer to a clean run. 

Nice Box Turn


Looks he's straight this time!


Our last race of the day Dante finally had a clean run! I couldn't believe it, so we were placed in the lineup last - green dogs (newbies) are usually placed either first or last so that they aren't passing multiple dogs. It gives them a higher chance of success with fewer distractions since their are already a ton of environmental distractions to begin with.

Having done a clean run our coach said we were in! Dante was to go fourth.
Each race I should mention also has 4-5 heats depending on what category you are running in. So Dante was to run in race 5 heat 1, if he did a clean run he could do the second heat, if not I was to immediately pull him and our alternate would take our place.

Ready.....Set....
GO!!!





Sadly Dante did not have a clean run, he dropped the ball right before the last jump! However we're super proud of him! For being a green dog in his first tournament he did an awesome job keeping his head, paying attention to me, and he didn't do any crazy zoomies/leave his lane/or chase any other dogs.

WAY TO GO DANTE!!




And while we didn't win, or score any individual points we had a blast and I learned so much!!

Our team came in 6th out of 6 for the category we were running in, and everyone received some sort of participation prize. Dante scored an awesome bandanna from VetriScience he's a #glycoflexdog which is true (we use their products!), some awesome blue buffalo treats, and I was given a bottle of beer which I swapped for wine (she didn't drink red wine, I don't drink beer - perfect swap!).

Thank you Animal House and So Fly!! We look forward to trying again!

We even got a ribbon!

18 comments:

  1. I was very proud of both you and Dante. You guys walked into a crazy, totally overwhelming environment and both did really well. I have no doubt that you both have many successful years of flyball ahead of you.

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    1. Thank you so much!!
      Looking forward to many more years of competing with you!

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  2. Congrats and it looks like you had a lot of fun!

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  3. Having fun is important too!Loved the pictures and video & look forward to seeing more of Dante in action

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  4. Looks like a wonderful time doing all that racing! Really great action pics too!

    Keep Calm & Bark On!

    Murphy & Stanley

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  5. That looks so freaking fun! He's so intense and bouncy when he runs. I love seeing that little Jack/Parson Russell terrier! What an awesome little height dog. I want to get into Flyball someday.

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    1. Flyball is so much fun, and the camaraderie is great!! I hope you do get into it someday!

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  6. Congratulations on a busy FlyBall Weekend - lots of fun, gaining experience & confidence framed by coffee and red wine - sounds pretty pawsome to me ;-)

    Loved the pictures and pinned several of them to my "Fit Dogs" board. I'm looking forward to reading much more from you about your FlyBall adventures this year!

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    1. Thank you!!
      Coffee and red wine is a must for me! :-) I think after a long weekend of running dogs and being in a noisy building it was well deserved.
      Wags & Kisses!!

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  7. While I know Jorga would never do this, she can't stand to be touched much, this gives me hope for her later. Great job!

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    1. Ziva had a hard time with this sport, we've taken a break with her until I can get Dante all trained up and competing and then I think I'll try training her again.
      She's the same way, a little jumpy about strangers holding her. She'll run perfectly for me at home and she's super fast!! But the noise and being surrounded by strangers and strange dogs she finds a bit overwhelming. We'll be putting her on the puppy training program when we start again, lots of baby steps to get her used to it and if she still isn't into it then no biggie. I do it all for the dogs so if they aren't having fun it isn't worth it to me. :-)
      Wags & Kisses!!

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  8. Congratulations to you and Dante. It looks like a really fun event for the dogs and I'm glad Dante didn't give up on getting a clean run.

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  9. Such a challenging environment. I'm terribly impressed with both of you.

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    1. Thank you!! It was certainly hard! I was really proud of him!

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