There has been some discussion on this and other blogs about the hostility or misinformation that some agility people have about flyball. I, and I’m sure many others, would like to see this come to an end. We all love our dogs and some of the conflict between the two groups is just, well, stupid. I think a lot of the problem just comes down to plain ignorance. I know that some people think that barking dogs are out of control dogs and others see flyball as uncontrolled chaos and this is very unfortunate.
I know that there are a lot of flyball people that play agility with their dogs too. We have to start somewhere, so it would be good if this group could pass on a good word about flyball to all of their agility friends. Many of you are probably members of an agility group, email group, and read and/or post on agility blogs and this is a good way to start a trend to praise the good things about flyball. Maybe we can have a flyball day where we can do demos at agility practices’ all across the country.
I think a little goodwill would go a long way to promote the good things about flyball, and put a stop to the hostility and misinformation about our sport. We may not be able to convert everyone but this could be a start to a better view of our sport.
Please help with the Movement!
Larry
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I don’t think we’ve noticed so much with regards to hostility in our area, but just lack of interest or understanding. We just recently broke away from our obedience club who had offered to sponsor us last year, but it was because an issue had come up and we felt that we just wouldn’t have enough autonomy to make the decisions that we felt best for the team because our BOD just couldn’t quite grasp how a flyball team works. Good people, they just didn’t “get it”. It was an amenable split. But, in the the year or so’s time that we came under the club we never did recruit any other members from the club for flyball, despite numerous demos at club events, etc. We’ve brought on only a couple of others in that timeframe, but from folks who’ve seen us in public. Some of the comments we’ve heard from other dog sports folks is that they’re wary of the team concept and are worried that if they or their dog messes up, it affects the team and they would feel pressured by that or that their dog isn’t “fast enough”, doesn’t have a lot of ball drive and so forth. Some don’t like the barking/noise issue and some feel it’s more dangerous than agilty. Of course we try to educate folks that you have to train to be safe, that all dogs and handlers make mistakes now and then, that your dog doesn’t have to be a speed demon, etc. We do several public demos a year at festivals and dog events. We get lots of spectators but only a few asking about how to get in the sport. We get some funny questions: Do you have to train your dog to do that?, Does it HAVE to be ball that they get? Lots of folks become disinterested when we tell them that we have to travel to tournaments. I think folks are drawn more to things like agility and obedience because they can usually practice on their own, whenever they choose, can usually compete locally and at whatever level of training that they feel ready to enter an event (regardless if they are ready or not). You have to have individuals with a good bit more committment and ability to work in a team environment for flyball, I feel, than in most other dog sports.
Beth
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