Flyball Fun in the Sun!!!

I love outdoor tournaments! I like soaking up some sun and spending my days outdoors. A lot of people whine about dogs running slower on grass but my focus is that Dylan and I both have a good time. If we aren’t enjoying ourselves why the hell are we playing flyball right? I enjoy indoor tournaments but I really really love hanging outside. Especially this weekend in St George with the Red Mountain Backdrops. Who really cannot appreciate that?

Fresh back from a weekend in St George. I was so beat up yesterday I spent the day recovering. The Major Highlights from the weekend include my Little Miss Marley…

She’s such a beauty and such a wonderful dog. She has hardly any drive to play flyball so I pulled her out years ago. Her issues with her back and hip make it risky anyway. It’s not worth it. We decided, however, that it would be fun for her to run one race and get a title! I registered her CRN Friday night and our Club Owner put her on as a sub for Sunday. The first title dogs get in NAFA is easy and can be acheived with one completed race under 24 seconds. Unfortunately we didn’t actually accomplish that. We ran 3/3 and only ran clean once. Our clean run wasn’t under 24 seconds since the team was already a slower one and Marley isn’t nearly as fast as Dylan. She did her job and got on the box with all four paws too. She did bobble the ball on the clean team run but the other two she did lots better! What a great little girl! She was even barking in the line up and was very excited to get racing. Maybe if she didn’t have injuries preventing her from playing - she would really be able to develop some competitive drive.

Her fastest time was about 6.5 seconds. Not the fastest dog out there but I could tighten it up with a better pass. I was sooo proud of her. She hasn’t even run at a practice for several months. I ocassionally let her run once or twice just so she can show off!! She does love to show off a bit.

Here is a video of her clean run:

Marley is now officially a retired flyball dog. She’s successfully competed and earned a whopping 5 points in NAFA. She’s not a racer but she loves tournaments. She gets to spend 24 hours a day with me and I love it as much as she does.

Some other noteworthy stuff from the weekend.

Dylan got injured Saturday. I am not really sure if it was a new injury or an old injury from the run in with the fence post a few weeks ago. The Acu-massage therapist from Hearts o’Fire said his right rear leg is really tight so I am rubbing it and using hot compresses the next few days. Hopefully that’s all he will need to heal up!

He raced on the injury and did pretty well. It broke my heart to race him but he didn’t have a choice. Our multi breed team didn’t have a sub that was a different breed than him. I vote for always having a sub that is a different breed than every dog on the team if we are going to run Multibreed. It doesn’t make sense to only have border collies and jacks as subs if there are already border collies and jacks on the team. Any dog can get injured and I hate the idea that any dog would have to run on an injury. Other people don’t agree.

Sunday he seemed to be doing much better….After a night full of bananas, ice and heat, and arnica cream. He raced well but was bobbling on the box all day. He doesn’t bobble nearly as often as he did this weekend so I think that his turn may have been a bit off because of the injury.

We got some great shots from a photographer there. My friends also took some and I can’t wait for their pics!!

Here are the photographers shots of the Dyl Pickle!

Some other fun pics from the weekend…

Dylan on ice in the hotel…..

Hanging out at the tournament site:

Flyball dogs love to Tug!

We had a great time hanging and traveling with our friends from Tiptail

Chase is my cuddle buddy at the hotel. Dylan got to run free with him and Tatum and they did great together!!

Tatum is a collie princess.

Overall it was a pretty good weekend! We can’t wait for the next one but it will likely not be until fall!!