Faster vs. Fun

I’ve read a lot this week about how flyball “needs to go back to being fun” (yes, that’s a quote), by which people mean “not running fast” (a paraphrase of a quote). I can’t write my actual opinion of this, because it would include a lot of swearing, but I’ll try and write a reasoned response.

Firstly, an example. Mollie is a 5.2s dog at nearly 12yrs old. She is a rescue dog. She thinks flyball is the best thing to ever have happened to her. She runs in a 21-22s team. We race to win, we race to run as fast as we can, and we have a lot of fun on the way. I am so proud of Mollie’s FD-Silver award, and she’s not even my dog. She’s the poster girl for the just-for-fun supporters, but she’s a very bad poster girl for flyball. She’s endearingly naughty, she’s got a terrible box turn, she chews on her ball which means she sometimes adds in a stride, and it’s a miracle she’s never seriously injured herself because she has the self-preservation instincts of a lemming. She has stumpy legs and a barrel body which don’t lend themselves to athleticism, and mean she can only really run with a height dog.

Because basically, flyball is a race. A race naturally encourages the desire to win, in both people and dogs. If people were truly dedicated to purely running just-for-fun, we would be running in a single lane with no electronic timing, judge or ring-party. We’d give rosettes out based on whose team was the prettiest, or who looked to be having the most fun. In fact, why even compete at all?

That is pushing it to the extreme, but it’s the logical follow through of a just-for-fun statement. At what point do you draw the line between fun and speed? It would also be fairly rubbish for Poster-Girl Mollie, because she loves running against faster dogs. Her stumpy legs go twice as fast when she’s got someone to race.

Without the racing element, and therefore the need to be faster, we would still be running on boxes like this: http://flyballdogs.com/boxes/ (bottom of page). We would still be asking our dogs to turn like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayanem/4897029769/**. Speed has forced us to develop safer training techniques. Speed has forced us to look at how we train, and develop more motivational and positive methods. Speed has made us look at the diet, fitness and conditioning of our dogs more closely.

Safety isn’t fun, it’s necessary. We’re responsible for our dogs, no matter how much fun they or we are having. And a safely trained dog will always run faster than a badly trained dog. Another example: Dylan would be running over a second slower without the training we continually do to improve his box turn, his recall, his approach and striding to the hurdles and to the box. We do this to make him faster, but we also do it because it is safer for him. A dog with inconsistent striding becomes more liable to crash hurdles or to skip out of the lane. Changeovers become difficult because dogs throw in extra strides or take them out, which can lead to collisions.

From a purely personal perspective, I love fast flyball. I enjoy seeing my dogs giving 100%, it makes me smile all the way through. I equally enjoy watching Division One at the Champs, seeing teams running 5s faster than my team. It’s inspirational! Likewise, our team’s two fastest dogs are Murphy (a rescue Whippet) and Jet (a crossbreed). I could sit and watch these two dogs all day, simply because I’m watching dogs with athleticism and speed and heart, having the most fun a dog could have.

Flyball, I’m afraid, needs to get over itself. It’s a race, which means the fastest dogs will win. If you choose to run slower dogs, then that is your choice. If you have a fast dog who is a slow flyball dog, then that is your failure as a trainer. If you feel that your slow dog is being overshadowed or underappreciated because of faster dogs, then to be honest, I’m not sure why. Surely you’re the only one whose opinion matters? I think Mollie’s the most amazing dog in the world.

**Sorry, whoever owns this dog. It’s not the worst turn I’ve ever seen, but it was the worst I’ve photographed. You can do better!