Honeysuckle Cottage 2009

This will be a familiar venue for some readers, I think, as it’s where the Delinquent Dogz agility series is held. I’ve never been before and it’s the first time there has been a flyball tournament there. It’s a nice venue; the ground held up incredibly well, and a lot of teams ran some quick times on it, especially considering the weather. The exercise area was a bit limited, especially when people insisted on throwing tennis balls for their dogs which meant we couldn’t let ours off-lead at all. (One of my pet peeve … seriously, who thinks throwing a tennis balls into an unknown selection of flyball dogs is a good idea?!)

Kim and Mollie were down a team in Nights on Saturday, a scratch team that came 3rd (?) in the end. Kim ran anchor in every leg, something she hasn’t done for a while! But the other dogs in the team usually run with a height dog and can’t cope for various reasons with 14″, so she was needed. Mol had fun, as ever, but didn’t wreake as much havoc as she normally does. Bit suspicious that … it may have been the weather, though. Because damn, did it rain! We haven’t flyballed in rain like that for a long time, and it was pretty miserable. We were all cold, wet and fed-up before racing had even started.

Dylan ran in a declared-time Barneys on Sunday, and we came 2nd. We won’t discuss our race with the eventual winners, but it should be noted there were some very dodgy decisions re: changeovers, which with hindsight we really should have argued out but it’s easier said than done. The team clocked 18.81 in the first leg of the day, so we couldn’t really push ourselves as our breakout time was 18.79! (Running 18.79 or under would have resulted in us losing the immediate leg; running 18.79 or under more than 3 times and we would have been disqualified).

I have to confess, I would have happily been anywhere but flyballing this weekend. The weather was awful and I felt really ill (my cold finally catching up with me). Sarah, Katie and Jane (and my lovely mum, of course!) made me laugh on Sunday and I felt better about flyball in general, but it was still a really miserable weekend for me. After weekends like this I really do wonder how much flyball is going to feature in future diaries.