Maine Coast Runners,
April 9th & 10th, 2005:
For our regular team we had Sally, Eartha, Susie
and Chance for the core dogs, Cosmo for warm-ups and race introduction and
Kiss for warm-ups. The multibreed team had Sally, Eartha, Lark,
Shrek, Haiku and Molly May.
Bring It!:
This was
the tournament for our regular team. We were in division 2 for the
first time, but this is the third tournament
that Sally, Eartha, Susie and Chance were running together as a
group. They were looking good. We started off a little chaotic- trying a
new handler for Eartha and learning the new box on the fly, however got in our groove
fairly easily after that. Unfortunately, Gene sprained his ankle
during the first race so he couldn't handle Susie. Fortunately,
Susie is a true flyball girl, not really caring who handles her. On
Saturday Monica handled her while new team member, Lynne, handled
Sally. The end of the day on Saturday (because of a Sally meltdown)
Lynne and Monica switched dogs (mid-race, even!) and through it all Susie didn't miss a
beat. Again, she's a true flyball dog. Eartha was in her
'happy place' all weekend, so her passes with the border collies were that
much better (it is hard to pass dogs you are angry with). Chance is
really taking to his anchor dog position as we noticed he does race the
last dog. He still has a slight tendency to chase his opponent down
after the race when we are in the left lane, so we are continuing to work
on that (however he looks pretty darn good). Cosmo started
warm-ups a little confused, but by Sunday was getting in his groove.
On the second to last race he did one real run during the race and was
perfect- unfortunately, the other dogs were not so it didn't count, but
he's looking REAL good. He even raced the dog in the other lane
without chasing it! His real debut should be the next tournament-
better to be slow and make him successful than to go through everything
quickly and confuse him more. Kiss was having a bad health weekend,
but was still looking good in recalls. All in all, a pretty stellar
weekend for the regular team, in spite of learning a new box, then
switching boxes for the last race. We ended up with a second place
in division 2 and a new fastest time of 20.54 seconds!
Life is Good:
The multibreed team seemed to experience more of the box malfunctions,
unfortunately. However the dogs and humans both looked real good and
we see great potential with this group. Molly May made her debut and
did not make a single mistake the whole weekend. Couldn't believe
this girl was a rookie. By the end of the weekend she was running as
start dog and got both her FD and FDX in one tournament (our first to
achieve multiple titles at the first tournament)! Molly's an agility
dog turned flyball dog, and we really think that flyball is her
sport. Lark is another one who continues to impress. She's
barely over a year and she's very consistent passing and being
passed. She and Molly enjoyed racing together and psyching each
other up. Normally she would still be considered a new dog, but
she's looking like a pro. Shrek, even though he is a pro, showed
that he really can shine and was looking good. Eartha
runs well with the border collies on the regular team (and we NEED her on
the regular team), but she seems to like the multibreed group better- lower
concentration of border collie. She was able to get much closer
passes following Lark than she could following Sally. Hopefully baby
brother will take over the regular team soon so she can have more fun
without all the evil border collies :). Haiku had a few good races
(enough to achieve her FDX) but burned out. She's going to
take a break while sister Karmela learns this tournament stuff.
While we didn't walk away with a great placement, the dogs
did spectacular. Cannot blame them or the humans for anything- box
issues are always a pain. Incidentally, this group also got our
club's SLOWEST WINNING time of 78.82 seconds! We think the box is
figured out (fortunately the box maker was at the tournament and could see
what was happening) so this group will be a force to be reckoned with next
time!
New
Titles:
New
Best Time (regular team): 20.543 (Sally,
Eartha,
Susie
and Chance)
Placed
second in division 2!!!
New
Best Time (multibreed team): 23.102 (Molly
May, Lark,
Eartha, and
Sally)
|