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On June 29th, at the Jet City Jumpers Fly First Class tournament in Seattle, Portland Tail Blazers' founding height dog earned her long-awaited ONYX title. Spam, a tiny Staffordshire Bull Terrier who served as the model for the club's logo, hit the 20,000 point mark in the afternoon. The team needed just two heats to finish Spam's title. But the first two heats had errors and were incomplete. The third heat was clean, but by then, nerves were so frazzled that everyone had forgotten what an important heat this was... except alert boxloader Jett Wyatt, who loaded Spam's specially marked racquetball right on schedule. Jett says, "I just kept taking the ball out of my pocket, and putting it back into my pocket, and taking it out of my pocket... and..." Fortunately, she did not lose track!
After the big race, Spam celebrated along with her "brother" and teammate Hotshot, teammate Mellie, and teammate Lexi, who earned their FM, FM and FDCh-S titles the same day. The club shared cake with anyone they could rope in, since there was far too much for just one team. The celebration was topped off by an unanticipated second place finish.
Spam, now 7 years old, started running flyball with the Mutt-keteers in 2003. She's a familiar and popular height dog in the region, famous for her dedication to her frisbee and for knocking jumps with abandon. Portland Tail Blazers would not have been able to start racing without Spam, who was, until recently, the club's only height dog. Spam's person, Carol Helfer, DVM, is herself an invaluable asset to Region 7 racing. Carol frequently serves as the onsite veterinarian for tournaments and can often be found scrutinizing a flyball competitor's leg or foot between races. Her German Shepherd, Danya, now retired, earned the first ONYX in Oregon and was voted Region 7's Most Valuable Player in 2007.
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