I am going to use some generalities about people in this post to make a point, and the philosophies I am talking about deal with how people train their dogs to play Flyball. Over my 7 years of playing Flyball I have experienced many different training philosophies but to simplify my point I am going to aggregate people into one of two groups. The first group I will call the Funners (I know it’s not a word) and the second group I will call the Winners.
It is not my intent to offend anyone with this analogy but it may. My main objective in even talking about this is for the sake of our four footed friends. I hope you will read this post in the spirit in which it is intended.
I have experienced firsthand the collision of these groups and I have seen what these differing philosophies can do to people you thought were your friends. Feelings run strong in this area and I am sure that this has caused the break up of many a team. Flyball can bring the best and worst out of people and many times it comes down to differing philosophies.
Let’s break it down
The Funners: This group of people says that their main objective is to have fun with their dog and that “we have created an atmosphere of camaraderie that has become the hallmark of the team.” That is great and I have no problem with this. I think that everyone started in the sport because they wanted to have fun playing with their dogs. There is nothing wrong with camaraderie and it is why teams stay together. However, what does any of this have to do with training your dog to be the best they can be?
The Funners tend to rush their dog’s training. After all, they want to start having fun as soon as possible. This group wants new people and new dogs in the ring even though they may not be ready. If the dog can go down to the box and retrieve the ball they are happy and think the dog is ready for an actual race.
The Winners: This group of people trains their new dogs to be the best they can be. They take whatever amount of time is necessary to fully train their dogs. They don’t let dogs that are not fully trained run in a Flyball race. This group also wants to have fun with their dogs but they train to win.
The collision
The Funners dislike the Winners and vice versa to some extent. After all, the Funners think that the Winners just want to run fast and win. That may be true, but what the Funners don’t see is that the Winners dogs are less prone to injure themselves or other dogs. Over time the Winners dogs will have less bone and structure problems and will continue running in the sport longer than the Funners dogs.
The Winners have put out many training articles and videos. They put on training seminars and encourage the Funners to train their dogs to have a proper box turn, to make sure their dogs do not have a crossover problem, and to make sure there are no other issues before their dogs are placed in a racing situation.
Why can’t the Funners and the Winners come together as one group? I encourage everyone to train their dogs to be the best they can be. Let’s all strive to keep our dogs injury free and to not let any dog run before they are fully trained and ready. There may be exceptions for very large dogs but most dogs no matter how fast or slow can be trained to do a proper box turn. All dogs should be tested by the team for crossover problems before they ever run their first heat in an actual race. It is up to you to make this sport the safest it can be for our furry friends’ sake.
Larry
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13 comments ↓
Hrm.. I have to disagree with you. I think the winners can tend to be cold and unfriendly. And the Funners, while in it for fun, can be just as likely to make sure their dogs are safe, while at the same time being pleasant to be around. I’ve run with those who are so strict that they just want to win and they hardly laugh, and their dogs don’t have much fun, either. I’m in it for fun, for myself and my dogs. I don’t care if we are the best, but I do care that we are safe.
I guess I can agree to some extent. Winners can be that way. However, I have witnessed on very many occasions, Funners running dogs that were nowhere close to being ready to race, which is really my main point. Safety of the dog should always be our number one priority but many times it’s to get racing as soon as possible.
winning vs having fun - they aren’t mutually exclusive. I’ve been on both types of clubs and have discovered that while it’s great for some people to do flyball just-for-fun, personally I like winning. it’s fun to win. it’s fun to get faster, to improve passing, to train your dogs to race. great box turns are beautiful. so are perfect starts.
I think you’ve oversimplified the situation. I’m on my 3rd team, and left my first team largely because of this situation. I assure you I had a lot more fun once several of us from our first club left the “funner” club to form a club with a Div 1 team and a “fun”, but not very competitive team. Coming last in Div 1 was better than winning a lower division back then.
The original team still runs in the lowest divisions, and has a revolving door when it comes to members. Their training methods are archaic, we wince when we see their promising dogs slam into the box, and know they aren’t doing anything to change. But the fact that they are funners isn’t the only problem. They’re the type of team that’s been run by the same person since the days of tuna tin launchers, and handlers aren’t allowed any input.
I like my current team. We’re in the running for our regional championship (only NAFA up here for now), but I’d describe us as a hybrid team. The top 4 dogs are automatically on the top team, but we find room for every other dog. We have purpose bred performance dogs, but we also have rescues and dogs that were just acquired as pets. But at the end of the day, I think we’re the most fun team in our region. We always go for dinner on Saturday nights at tournaments, celebrate everybody’s birthdays and other events. We genuinely get along, with flyball being the common denominator or glue. I think the important thing is that teams have an agreed upon philosophy rather than be strictly competive or just in it for fun.
I also have a theory that most of the competitive flyballers probably play or played other competitive sports and are used to the competitive mindset, while “funners” have played recreationally or as hobbies and haven’t experienced the adrenalin rush of a hard fought win, or the desire to compete at the highest level they can.
That’s my rant.
Pete
Oh, I forgot to mention I agree wholeheartedly with Kristie, and am guessing that Cynthia’s observations depend to a large extent on the region you compete in..
Thanks for your comment Pete and it sounds like we’ve had very similar experiences. I too left my first team for much the same reasons as you have stated. But the team that I was on has since changed some of their training methods and has gotten a lot better.
I witnessed something at a tournament with a different team just a couple months ago that really made me cringe. Here is this very nice young extremely fast Border Collie running down to the box and just smashing headlong into it. It was hurting me just watching this and every time he would hit the box I would just gasp and wince. The whole back half of his body was coming completely off the mat every time he hit the box, a real face plant. After the race I went up to the person and told them that they were going to cause serious injury to their dog if they continued to run the dog without teach him a proper box turn. The team owner joined the conversation and said that they are trying to teach the dog and are working on the problem.
People just don’t get it. If a dog starts hitting the box without proper training it is very difficult to correct the situation afterward. Retraining is so much more difficult than training right in the first place. After the conversations, I know that they were probably talking about me. For some reason people think of me as only wanting speed and fast dogs; yes, I do like fast dogs and I like to win but they are completely missing the point. Safety of the dog is the most important thing in my mind and dogs like the one that I witnessed are doing serious harm to themselves by doing this. This verges on cruelty.
Larry
Consider this:
Whose dog has more fun?
The Funner’s dog or the Winner’s dog?
Is it the dog that has learned it will get
some cheese if it carries a ball over four jumps?
Or is it the dog that stares down the dog in the
other lane and gives it’s heart to beat that dog?
We strive to be a Winner. Our method is to make
Flyball fun for the dogs. The more fun they are
having, the faster they will be.
Winners can be funners and funners can be winners!
I think everyone goes into the ring to win. If they don’t win they have points, and if they don’t have points they’ve had a great day (hopefully) with their dogs, their team mates and other flyballers.
What is sometimes not very nice (understatement) is that some people dump their dogs if they don’t come up to their expectations, or put them to one side, or worse.
Flyball is a hobby. A sport that we do with what should be our best pals, our dogs. Too many folks have only one thing in mind. Winning. And if they don’t win, they beat their chests and blame their dogs, the lights, the judge, anything. Their day/weekend ruined and they’ve had no fun and go home unhappy.
I’ve watched very experienced and inexperienced dogs running and I’ve seen accidents and injuries in both camps.
One of my dogs hits the box like a bomb before continuing with a swimmers turn. She has always done it this way and it’s always made people cringe. My dogs are seen by a chiropractor every couple of months to keep them “tuned up.” Her structure is 100% healthy and sound and she’s 10 years of age and still running at 4.81. The only injury she ever suffered was from a very experienced dog who came into her lane to get her ball and bit her through the muzzle into her gum and put her atlas out of kilter. The dog that did it had never been known to do this sort of thing before.
A dog is a dog is a dog. Not a machine that never goes wrong.
There should always be the F word……. Fun, in flyball whether you are a funner or a winner.
I believe a very important point has been missed regarding “Funners” and “Winners” and that is it is not an either or. Yes Winners want to have fun and Funners, in fact, want to win-it is much more fun winning than losing, and I think most Funners want to win. It is really the degree of importance a Winner puts on winning and a Funner put on having fun that is the issue. I know people who cannot have fun unless they win, and that is neither good for them or their dogs, because the dogs sense it. On the other hand if Funners put no credence to winning they have missed something improtant in the sport. I completely disagree with the comments that winners train their dogs any better than Funners. Also, a newcomer, gets all kinds of conflicting information about the “right” way to do things so whether someone is a Funner or Winner it is frequently difficult to end up training a dog correctly.
Great discussion and timely for us. We have decided we are fun winners, as one of our teammates said. Best of both worlds. We are an evolving group. When we first got started we hoped to just run clean and pick up some points and titles here and there. As we’ve improved and gotten more consistent, our goals have naturally evolved to where we like to get some better placements and wins now and again. We’ve even been talking U-fli qualifiers lately. Still we have always strived (striven?) to train for safety and technique first and are having a good ole time doing what we do.
We cringe at the pure FUNNER philosophy, the dogs smashing faces, dogs who aren’t ready, handlers who stand at the line with a treat while the dog debates if it’s worth coming closer to that treat when they’ll be grabbed. Our current team’s goal is to have well trained, competitive dogs, who run to the best of their ability. We spend oodles of time training new dogs slowly, carefully. We seek out new training methods all the time. But, we very rarely end up in Div 1. Now, some Winners might say we are just a bunch of Funners, we have rescue dogs, and just dogs who were pets, dogs who also do other sports, we have 3 height dog hybrids on our team that are all rejects from other teams, we even have dogs who run 6+ seconds GASP! But the dogs have good turns, we run well, we want to have good starts, passes, and really RACE the other teams in whatever division. I think we are an example of being Fun Winners. We do the best with what we have, but we aren’t exactly rushing out to get a new dog every month, we aren’t disposing of our dogs who aren’t fast enough etc.
There can be a bad side to being too focused on winning just like those too focused on having fun.
Jayne – I totally agree with you. I think I fall in the middle somewhere too because I want to have fun and win too; I like the term Fun-Winners. I want my dogs trained well no matter if they run 4 seconds or 6+ seconds. There is no reason that both can’t coexist on the same team I guess I can also be called a moderate if you use the analogy of Left and Right – Liberal and Conservative. The extreme Funners and Winners is where I see a problem which is the same in politics (for me).
In the two years I have been involved in Flyball, I would say that I have seen teams from “Funners” to “Winners” at one time or another.
It takes drive to put together a team capable of running under 17-18 seconds - much more drive than a pure “Funner” cares to commit to. This kind of speed is finessed in the details.
I feel the best kind of team has that person or two that worries the details, a person or two that can get everybody to talk, and that person or two that can lighten a tense moment or just plain have you in stitches for the lighter moments.
I do not feel I am a “Funner” if I am not driven to compete in Div I, and I do not feel I am a “Winner” because I feel that each heat should result in points. Because being worth points means you have done it correctly and safely. And everyone pitched in (dogs and people), resulting in a sense of team accomplishment.
And all this starts with regular practices, staying consistent with techniques that work, and staying abreast of what works for others. Because each dog responds in his own way, and each person responds in their unique way.
Work hard, play hard, bring everybody home!
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