ZoZo

Zoey often crosses her front legs right before we start, it's just some thing that she does, no idea where that comes from. People do notice it from time to time and think it's funny. I was surprised to see that going on while she runs in this slow motion video as I've never noticed that before. I don't think it matters at all. Zoey turns right on the box and she did seem have a bobble on that heat, but not sure. The forth dog is Mia, the Aussie. Her owner was holding her up on the passes as she's a bit of a lane hog (I've noticed a lot of Aussies in Flyball have this trait). In another heat with a close pass, she did push Zoey out of the lane entirely and I had to rerun her. It's amazing how many things can go wrong in flyball. This tournament was a little strange as we ran an untried line up. Zoey and Mia had never passed each other before and we had not done any practice with these two dogs passing together (grrr). Not the recommended way to go into a tournament, but we had to deal with what we had. All we could do was hold up Mia slightly and run as clean as possible. As is turned out, that worked out well- our team came in first place in our division Saturday and Sunday!

No, no, not the pet people! Just kidding. Actually that would be me. Our small team is mostly pet people too. That description still makes me laugh because when I started flyball I used to think that all flyball people were pet people!

Hmmm, in the run back? I didn't even know that was a problem. As you can tell, about all of our training and tournaments are on grass. We've only done three tournaments on mats- that's an incredible luxury in Southern California. I wonder if dogs that run on mats all the time build up a tougher carpal pad? My other dog, Jinx, has the same problem, well he has lots of problems, but it includes wearing his pads on the box as well.

Quite the opposite, Zoey doesn't slide at all, she has a great turn. The problem is friction of her dew pad on the box surface (high strength rubber matting)- if I don't tape her with vet wrap or use the boots (which are much easier), she'll start wearing off the dew pads by mid morning at a tournament and start bleeding. She runs mid to low 4 seconds and is going at a pretty good clip when she gets to the box. Dogs that skid into the box (not a good thing) are usually doing so with their rear legs & paws.

Hey Dana, thanks so much for helping out and making the trek to OC! People really pitched in and volunteered like crazy all weekend to make everything run smoothly, it never ceases to amaze me. We were lucky with the rain too, it was a monsoon here yesterday. Greg

Hey flyball fanatics, here's a fun, slow motion flyball video from the weekend where our team put on a tournament in Irvine, California. My border collie, Zoey is running the third postion. I don't know who took this, except it was a friend of someone on our team. He was using a camera that can do 1,000 FPS! It's very different seeing it so slow and at this odd perspective. I'm letting go of Zoey at 40 feet from the start line, so you can't really tell distance in this. Flyball Slow Motion

Aside from any medical issues, my BC, Zoey, was almost a year old before she began to notice a ball or frisbee, so that's probably not too strange in itself. Likewise our other guy, who we didn't get until he was 3 or so, had no interest in toys, balls or frisbee, but seemed to learn all that from the other one in a short time. Now they are both fetching fanatics.

I would consider building your own if you are at all handy. This was the first box I built and I have to say, it's not too bad. I used a jig saw and basically backwards engineered the design from photos I found online and specs from the NAFA rule book. It took me a while to build, as I had no idea what I was doing and had to figure it out as I went. Not the fastest way, but it's an option if you are determined and want to save money. I spent about $150 for all the materials including a sheet of 3/4" cabinet grade plywood. The club I'm with uses the Premier boxes also. If it were up to me, I would not use these. Personally, I find that they are too heavy, very difficult to load (not everyone in the club can load it!), expensive ($1,100.00 is lame) and hard to trigger by small dogs. They need repairing every couple of years and that's not cheap either.

This dog off leash thing is a big pet peeve of mine. I may (or may not) break the law every single day with my dogs off leash (not allowed in my local park or school). But if I did break the law, or thought I was above the law, it would only be because the law is stupid. There are also no dog parks in this city, or an animal shelter, so no surprise there. One of my neighbors (he's about 55) was actually chased by a cop one evening in our local park. He had no leashes with him, so he ran to the elementary school next door and hid in the bushes with his two dogs for 30 minutes in the pitch black until the cop got tired of routing around for him! No offence to police folks, I know they have a job, but harrasing otherwise law abiding, tax-paying citizens for letting your dog off leash, at night, in an empty park is 100% ridiculous. Anyways, our sheriff department has since redeemed themselves. I've been doing some flyball practice at another local park early each Sunday for a few months now (I didn't bother to check with the city, I know that's illegal also since a dog would need to be off leash). Last week a sheriff guy shows up and I'm thinking "how am I going to talk my way out of this?", but he was totally cool, he was only doing a routine walk through to make sure everything was ok (this park is somewhat isloated). We was curious what we were up to and we showed him what flyball was about and how fun it is. He thought it was great, told us to have a nice day and was on his way.

Sounds like a great event and a good weekend for something fun like this! We'll be going for the flyball.

Our female always seemed to have a sensitive stomach. She never acted sick, just had bad diarrhea. Blood work and tests for parasites always came back negative too. It was becoming expensive and frustrating while our vet didn't really have anything to offer except antibiotics. I started putting a small amount of food grade diatomaceous earth in both our dogs kibble everyday (which I read about on this board) and she's been fine for six months, which is a record for her. It is great stuff.

Cynosport is always a great event, so much to see and do. Definitely worth the 6 hour drive. We'll be there with our monkeys for some awesome flyball racing. I can hardly wait!

That's my experience as well. My vet always spends extra time looking over my sport BCs when they get examined, but it's because they are in such great shape. He always tells me that a low heart rate, well muscled body and low body fat is just something he's not used to seeing in the overweight suburban dogs around here! And he says he has to be really careful about how he comments to clients about how fat their dog is becoming. Some get really indignant or simply refuse to believe it. Sad really.

Border Collies need structure and routine in their day, at least mine do. They like their schedule and know what to expect. Their intelligence is awesome, but becausee of it I've found my dogs need a different kind of management style than other dogs I have owned in the past.

Hokey! No way! You need see the "Mist's Great Challenge" episode on the season 1 DVD, this is ripping stuff. The only bad thing in all this that is that you need to buy the series DVDs out of the UK and it won't play on many normal US DVD players since it's zoned for the UK & Europe! I just watch it on my mac and it's fine. Don't mention the eye! (the second part of this clip)