Entries from July 2008 ↓

In comments I have seen it mentioned several times about team philosophies and goals and the importance of choosing a team that fits with your philosophy and goals in playing flyball.  In most of these conversations only two philosophies are mentioned;  you play for speed/setting records/taking first place or you play for points.  I would like to make the argument that that is not a complete list.

There are a few additional philosophies and sometimes differing opinions on these can be the things that cause dissatisfaction, split teams or cause tension between teams at tournaments.  Your team may be made up of a few of these philosophies to varying degrees. No one is superior to another… you choose according to what is a good fit for you.

Dance with the dogs you came with. You may play for speed, or you may play for points, but you play with the dogs currently in your homes.  As you become more interested in the sport you may add dogs to your home, but everyone plays as long as they are able and want to, and your homes are the dog’s “forever” home. The dogs you add may be rescues or they may be bred for flyball (though this is less likely) but no dog is ever rehomed to make room for a dog with more potential.  Your team races anywhere from Division 1 on down and you’re okay with racing in lower divisions.

It’s about talent and going for the Gold.  You want to be the best in your region, heck best in the country, and that requires enormous commitment; commitment in breeding, commitment in training, commitment in financial resources to travel to compete.  Your goal is to be the elite and the best of the best.  Your team is interested in training and racing the “Olympic Athletes” of the sport and well, not every dog can meet that standard….Not every handler can either.  You share your successful training techniques with others with the hopes of improving the sport across the board.  You may even share your well trained dogs with other flyball enthusiasts desperate for a dog to play with, but without the training skills to prepare one.  You take competing very seriously and the rewards are in seeing all that hard work pay off with faster times, pushing the envelope and achieving what you’ve never achieved before.

There is a flyball tournament going on at our party.  Your team spends about as much energy planning Saturday night’s dinner as they do training the dogs; fun people, fun dogs, fun times.  There is enough stress and intensity in living life, the last thing you want is stress in your leisure activities.  You want your dogs to perform the sport well enough, but no one gets on anyone else’s case for a 10-foot pass… you’re playing for fabric ribbons or squeaky toys for heaven’s sake.  The dogs have fun… everyone is having fun.

We just wanna complete.  You are all new at this and gosh, who knew there was so much to it.  Everyone is learning… dogs and people… you just want to get out there and complete a clean race with no errors… points and placements are not your concern right now, successful racing is.  If your dogs earn points or you place well at the tournament, that’s icing on the cake.

There’s Varsity and there’s JV. You put your very best dogs out on your Varsity team…it’s something that has to be earned after all.  It may not be a division 1 team, but they are solid and the best you’ve got.  Dogs that sometimes flake are not as fast, and new dogs run JV.  Everyone is working for a spot on Varsity.  It requires that everyone is very realistic about their dog’s skills and their own skill as a handler.  Sometimes it’s just as hard to take now as it was in high school, but hey it’s more like the real world.

Connie

I’m not a big fan of Dog TV Shows and Movies. The ones that get less attention aren’t that bad but the larger production shows are a problem. I’m talking about the Greatest American Dog show on CBS, movies like 101 Dalmatians, and other such large production shows. The reason I’m against such shows is that some people watching them feel the need to run out to get one of these dogs. They look at a Border Collie on commercials or TV shows and want to run out to get one. Then when the dog is trashing their apartment or home they either take them to the shelter or throw them in the backyard.

These people look at Eddie, the Jack Russell terrier on the TV show Fraser a few years ago, and everyone had to have one. What they don’t realize is that these are special breeds and have traits that not everyone can deal with.

Breeders

Most responsible breeders will make sure that their puppies are in the right homes but unfortunately, there are many irresponsible breeders out there. Just recently in the area where I live, someone opened a pet store named “Pet Land.” My wife and I were horrified to find that they are selling puppies there. No responsible breeder would allow his or her puppies to be sold in a pet store. As far as I’m concerned, these are just puppy mill dogs and this activity should be banned.

Larry

A question came up on the Flyball Forum about training a swimmers turn for “small dogs.” I assume they were talking about a height dog. I posted this on the Flyball Forum but thought that it would be a good addition here.

I have described the method that I use to train swimmers turns in my Training Manual on this site but I’m going to describe a different method that can be just as affective if done correctly.

The Running Method

There is another method for teach smaller dogs a box turn which I call the Running Method. Although, I have not used this method because I haven’t trained a height dog lately, it seems to work well because the faster teams use it and there small dogs have really fast box turns. I think this method came about because using the “Hit It” method dogs tend to hang on the box, be it only for a fraction of a second. I’ll try to describe the method but it’s easier to show it than describe it.

First off, it is important that the dog be highly ball driven, for with this method you will only be using a box, a ball, and your body. You need to know which way your dog turns but you can train all your dogs to turn the same direction if you like and may even be beneficial for other reasons that I won’t go into here. Anyway, you start off kneeling on the floor in front of the box with your highly motivated ball crazy dog, and in this case, we are going to train a right turn. With your dog on your left side and your left knee on the box kind of in the center and low on the box, you will lore your dog with the ball onto the box. As the dog runs up the box and over your knee, you will throw the ball behind you with your right hand. This training technique is done over and over, over very many training sessions.

The whole idea behind this method is to create a running fast tight turn. Just look at any of the faster teams, like the Gamblers or Rude Dogs and you will see almost all of there smaller dogs turn this way. They have a running approach to the box and run up it rather than hit and catch.

Larry

The Flyball list has been a staple of the Flyball community since 1995 according to the Flyball Home Page.  I, like most other flyball enthusiasts, have subscribed to the list for many years.   In my case, I am no longer a subscriber because I grew tired of all the email.  Moreover, with no record of prior topics, the same topics are rehashed over and over again.  I know that many people use the Flyball List to stay informed about happenings in the Flyball world but the organizational website do a pretty good job of that now.

The Flyball Forum

Over a year ago, my wife suggested that someone create a Flyball forum but I didn’t think anyone would be interested because of the Flyball List, and now even U-FLI has their own list.  After some more thought, I think she is right and the Flyball community needs a forum.  So please check out the Flyball Forum.  Please keep in mind that I just created it and I’m sure it will go through some growing pains and my learning curve. Please let me know what you think and if I can do anything to make it better.

Larry

If you look up the meaning of ringer in the dictionary, you may see these meanings: (1) a contestant entered dishonestly into a competition or (2) a contestant entered in a competition under false pretenses. Although, neither one of these definitions is completely accurate for the case I want to discuss, I’m going to use the word, ringer in the sense that a dog is brought over from another team and no one on the team actually owns the dog. Ownership of the dog may or may not be transferred. This practice, although not against the rules, seems unfair to me in a number of ways.

The Scenario

The team owner or a member of a team becomes friends with someone on a faster team. The friendship may or may not be a valid friendship, i.e. a ruse to acquire a fast dog, usually a height dog, from the faster team. The fast team may be pumping out height dogs just so that they can set records and a 4-second height dog may not be fast enough for them. So instead of the fast team having an over abundance of height dogs, they give a slower team in another region one of their fast height dogs. After all, a 4-second height dog is a real commodity to a slower team. It can mean the difference between being 2 or 3 in the region to taking the number 1 position.

As I said, it is not against any rule, and may I add that I don’t think a rule could even be created to lessen this activity, but it does seem somewhat underhanded or unfair to me. It’s especially unfair to the dogs and people on the team that own and trained their dog(s). After all, this ringer is now taking a spot on the team in place of one of the team dogs.

The Fast Teams

Who hasn’t sat in awe and watched these fast teams compete against each other. However, when you think of the dogs that may have been tossed aside for the sake of speed…it makes you wonder. I’m not saying that all fast teams do this but I know that one sub 16-second team does and I can’t help but think that more do.

I would like to know what you all think about this practice. Is it good for the sport or if more people knew about this would it give the sport a bad name? Is Flyball going the way of the conformation breeder, i.e. over breed to find the best? What are your thoughts?

Larry