Tabley Flyball

I hate flyballing in the rain. Remind me not to do it again!

Our dogs worked hard all day, and the ground conditions weren’t perfect by any means. The grass was a couple of inches high, the ground was rough and the dogs were racing uphill. The ring was situated right next to the clay pigeon shooting, which freaked a lot of dogs out including some on our teams. Not the fault of the flyball competition organisers but it meant almost everyone was running slower than normal.

Kim’s team, Barking Owlers, were down to 4 dogs again and we nearly didn’t have that! Claire’s Lolly is normally our anchor dog, but Claire’s other dog Bertie has come down with Kennel Cough so Lolly is in isolation as well despite being her normal crazy self. Luckily our good friend Sarah stepped in with her old-pro Floss, who hasn’t competed for since 2005 but fitted right in and ran brilliantly to keep us in with a chance. We came 4th in the end, not too bad, with a fastest time of 20.03 so we beat our Seed time (just!).

Mollie’s team didn’t have a great day! On paper they should have wiped the floor in their Divison but “Lead Legs” Stripe was back and having a bit of a strop and they ran nowhere near their best times. Bailey has also decided that running past Mollie for her changeover isn’t as much fun as shoulder barging her as they cross, so poor Mollie was swerving around like a drunk to try and avoid her! Bailey is such a little minx. They still managed to finish 2nd!

I also Vetrapped Kim’s back legs as a bit of an experiment for when/if we finally get some dry weather and she had no problems, it didn’t bother her at all and did seem to protect her from the usual grass stains so hopefully when we do get on the hard ground this will be the answer. Sadly my lovely turquoise Vetrap is all out now so I need to find some more sharpishly!