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Team Elders Bailey and Huey
  
Two Flyball Career Paths Converge and Diverge
       
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  

 

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 was

 
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.
 
   
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!

   
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

 


Bailey and Huey now head in separate directions.