Sadly, we’ve all been there and if you haven’t been yet, you probably will.

This Sport is really about speed and improving on speed. In our club, every week we train we try to do better than the week before. And better really means faster. Sure we want a bettter box turn, tighter, smoother, snappyier off the box- Why? TO IMPOVE on SPEED. We practice getting passes tighter- Why? Speed. Everything we do is to improve on the time we run while keeping our dogs sound.

Face it , there’s always going to be a dog who’s faster than yours. But the thing to me is, that we too often forget, this is a team (Club) effort. And if your Club gets a fast dog, it’s a Club win not a single person/dog win. Right?

Flyball people can tell you who the fastest club in North America is – but can the same amount tell you the name of the fastest Dog and Handler pair? (far fewer I’m certain)

Your club Philosophy should drive the line up formation, and you should know and actually believe in the philosophy before you join.

It’s great you brought this up – because this is the sort of topic that should be decided on as a club before it happens. This could get disscussions rolling.

You can have both worlds if someone is willing.

Of course, I have run someone else’s ringer on their club so I can get my speed fix that way too.

We’re not on one of the top teams, in fact, we only ran in Division 1 once in the last 4 years, and that was a fluke, but our team camaraderie is outstanding. You don’t have to be on a top team for camaraderie and you definitely don’t have to be on a top team to travel to other regions and to meet new people. For us, it is all about our dogs and human companionship and last of all for the competition, we do love to compete, after all it wouldn’t be a race if there were no competition (regardless of your level of racing).

If your goal is to have the fastest team and that is understood from the beginning, go for it, but don’t step on the toes of others to get there and ruin friendships.

If I hadn’t brought this subject up we wouldn’t be discussing it right now and some people may not even know that the practice exist. It does go back to finding the right team even if you are one of the founding members.

You left out the part about “…fastest team in the region” in your original article.

If you are the fastest team in the region, your team is, by definition, all about “speed”. However way the team captain/owner does it, they are going to do things to maintain or improve this position.

Leaving the team is not your only option in NAFA anymore. You can find some friends from another club and combine your dog with theirs and enter the Open Class. That way, if your HD is listed as “back-up” on your A team but, never gets to run, you can run in Open Class. Your team of origin still has “back-up” available to it but, you & your dog get to actually play.

The hardest part about participating in a “team sport” is finding the willingness within yourself to set aside your own “personal needs” for the needs of the “team”. If your personal needs are really only about “having fun” then, it won’t matter to you if your dog plays on the A team or an Open team. However, I’ve known several individuals for whom this DID matter and they left their team because their dog was no longer listed on the “A” team.

At any rate, DO what is best for you & your dog and BE HAPPY. Stop worrying about what other people want (fast dogs) or do.

….Chris

You both bring up excellent points but the scenario that you are describing is not really the issue. Yes, there are some valid reasons for bringing in an outside dog as you both stated. However, that wasn’t the point of my post. Here is the problem.

Let’s say that you are running on a team that has plenty of dogs, even height dogs. You are already the fastest team in the region but another faster dog is brought in from another team and region. Now the height dog that was on your A team is moved to a back up position on the A team. You are still fast enough to beat any team in the region even with the back up height dog but the back up dog never gets to run. Even when you are running much slower teams, the back up dog sits in his crate.

It would be a different story if you reposition your dogs but you have plenty of dogs and even if you moved the back up height dog from your A team you might be bumping out other height dogs. The soul reason for bringing in the other dog is for speed. It doesn’t matter if other dogs get pushed aside by a dog that isn’t even owned by anyone on the team. So what do you do? You eventually leave the team.

It just so happens that situation was true a couple of years ago for a married couple on our team. The husband had trained their “first” flyball dog. The wife wanted to join in on the fun she perceived her husband as having. The problems began when it became obvious that “her” dog wasn’t getting it.

It never occurred to us to even look for a “ringer”. That might’ve resolved their issues. As it so happened, they ended up leaving us and flyball because BOTH of them couldn’t play with their own dog.

…..Chris

There were also some other perks that came with it. We were one of those teams who could always field one team of 6 dogs, but fell 1 or 2 dogs short on the second team due to people who couldn’t make tournaments or moved, etc. Thus, several dogs had to double run or we didn’t enter the second team. These dogs never forced any other dog to sit on the sideline. Secondly, about half of the team, including myself, had a desire to field a more competitive team for the fun of it and this dog would allow us to do that.

We eventually left the team, taking our ‘ringers’ with us because we really enjoyed the fun of competition and the camaraderie that you get being on a top team. We wanted to travel more, meet new friends and compete against different regions.

Now, my ‘ringer’ is semi-retired due to a career-ending injury, but she played in every tournament up until then and now comes to practice every Sunday to help train puppies. I guess there is a common misperception that slower dogs don’t matter and don’t get to play on more competitive teams which is unfortunate. These are our pets first and ‘children’ for many of us. We love them, regardless of if we have 1 or 5 and we just go out there and field more teams to accommodate all our dogs so that everyone who wants to play can play.

There are pros and cons to doing this though. If someone is unhappy that their team is doing it, even they need to speak up and get some clarification or just leave.

Being bitter only leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouths not just those involved.

People moving or starting teams will only help flyball grow.

I do not have ringers on my team but I know folks who do. I may not always agree with it or how it is done but it is not my business. If a team wants to do it then do it. If teammates don’t like it then those folks can just move to a team that they get along with or start a new one.