British Flyball Championships 2011

Summer days. Love the Champs. I don’t care that they’re not whichever competition you* think is better. I appreciate these Championships for what they are, which is a fun, competitive, and noisy tournament full with teams from every corner of the British Isles. Also, nowhere else would you get 200 people willingly dressing up in all kinds of bizarre costumes and dancing like idiots all evening, from tiny babies to 80-yr-olds. Agility just doesn’t have that kind of willingness to let go.

Kim was running in Hawk Owlers on Friday, seeded bottom of Division 31 and eventually coming 2nd. Sad that we didn’t win, but it was a good effort and Kim ran her socks off. She was tired by the last race of the day, due to the ground and the fact she was height dog and so had run every single leg, but she tried her heart out like she always does.

Dylan and Mollie were on the same team on Saturday, in Division 26. The team ran amazingly, very tough racing and coming back from 2-legs down on a couple of occasions. So proud of all of them for coming 1st, I can’t think of a bunch of dogs who deserve it more. Mollie is 12, Buffy is 10, Dylan has worked through many issues, Bailey is ever-reliable and ever-speedy and we would be lost without her, Biba has come from running into things to actually running up and down, and Ronnie has embraced his new team without batting an eyelash.

From my own perspective, this is Dylan’s first Divisional win at the Championships. He always tries and he doesn’t always get the credit for that, but he also has to overcome a lot of anxiety to flyball, so I’m very proud of him for this.

Mollie has won every time she has competed, in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011. She will be 13 yrs old for 2012 so we don’t know if she’ll be back to defend her title, but we’ve been saying that every year since we started. Either way, she’s amazing.

Ghost Owlers, our top team, ran in Division 9 on Sunday and came away with a 2nd. Proud of them as well, and really looking forward to where this team goes in the next year, especially with a handful of new dogs waiting in the wings.

Looking forward to next year already.

*Non specific “you”. Seemed to hear lots of generic grumping on this topic this year, which I just thought was a shame.