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Team Elders Bailey and Huey
Two Flyball Career Paths
Converge and Diverge
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Double Dog Dare’s senior most
players, and the club's highest pointed dogs, celebrated two very
different milestones this summer: Bailey – his retirement and Huey –
his Onyx award. When the dogs ran for the first time in August 2002, they
were nearly 1,500 miles apart. Bailey was in Mason City, Iowa, and
Huey was in Lakeland, Florida. They ran separately for four years.
But in 2006, their paths converged on completion of the second of two
relocations that brought both of their handlers to the Athens, Georgia
area. Huey
and his handler arrived a year earlier and met a group of
people who were training with |
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no sense of urgency. Things moved
along slowly until Bailey and his handler arrived on the scene.
They brought with them two very important things: a much needed
boost of energy for the group and the ability to convince nonbelievers
that from this group of wannabes would come a solid competition team.
After all, we now had two dogs and handlers who had experience
playing. We were half way there.
Bailey and Huey have shared the lane
much of their time in Georgia. Initially, their experience was
needed on the one team that our young club was capable of fielding.
Eventually, their breeds helped us stretch to a second team by
allowing us to run in the Multibreed or Variety classes. But even after the club
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 retirement.
Many guests expressed their surprise that
this dog that so loved the game would be pulled from competition. But
Bailey entered the flyball scene with injuries from his young dog days
that sometimes left him hurting after a weekend of competing. The
decision to end his career was a painstaking one made from love.
Bailey’s 7-year journey ended with his arrival at the Number 4
American Eskimo in NAFA and the Number 2 American Eskimo in U-FLI.
Bailey will continue on our rosters in both honorary and backup
capacities, but his days of running full time or anything near full
time ended that weekend in Athens.
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Two months later at his first NAFA appearance since the departure of
the giant white fluff ball, Huey took to the lanes – still as a
Veteran – with the help of members of Fur Fun. He became the second
dog on Double Dog Dare to earn his Onyx. Bailey was the first.
Somewhat oddly, both dogs traveled out of region to earn this coveted
title in Raleigh at events hosted by DogGoneFast. Huey now is the
29th ranked Whippet registered in NAFA and third ranked
Whippet in U-FLI. After seven years of competing, Huey is still
excited about the game. We may have to buy him out to get him to go
away!
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growing and working on additional
teams, there were occasions when interest in an event was low. Again,
we collapsed down to one team, and again the boys were together. When
the Veterans class became permanent in the 2007 race year, both
handlers looked forward to their dogs’ seventh birthdays. When those
arrived, the dogs seemed inextricably linked, for running them
together in Veterans over minimum jumps freed up our scarce height
dogs to help the new dogs coming on board.
However, “seemed” was the operative
word, for in July 2009 at Athens
Dawg Derby, our club’s own tournament, Bailey’s handler
announced his |
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Bailey and Huey now head in
separate directions. |
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