Night one and the dogs are going good..

Tonight was the first taste of Flyball for the Summer Season. Dog Sports Rotorua run this every Thursday night right through daylight savings time. However, they started daylight savings a bit early this year and our usual 6p.m. till 8p.m. time slot is really too dark, so we are doing 5p.m. till 7p.m. to catch the light, which doesn't suit everybody as they don't finish work until 5p.m. So it is a bit mucky until we get the light.

The start of the evening is an Agility and retrieve Game through a tunnel and over a hurdle which is played by two teams, a blue team and a red team. It went very well. Red team won, with me as Captain. Next week's course was then set up and practiced by all as the game course advances every week. Next week the Captain of the blue team gets to take one of our players and send us a secret weapon player, so we will see how it goes, we might lose next week.

Flyball tonight was on the flat, that is no hurdles. The Junior and new handlers played on a 12.5meter course and the Senior or old hands played on the 25meter course. The juniors beat all the seniors, as we raced juniors against seniors in the first round and then the losers were in the second tier of competition. Some dogs did very well. Keile was one, Poppy the terrier

was another, I was mega proud of my Fae making it to the semi finals.  The little darling.  The Junior Winner was Maddy, Amanda's dog and he got a purple ribbon to prove it.  The Master class or seniors, Abby Pakes was standout.  Little Bailey worked very well, but in the end my Chan was the winner.  Next week the Juniors will race a full 25meter course on the flat, with the exception of Maddy who will have one half  hurdle to get over.  The Seniors will have all their hurdles up with the exception of Chan who will have his full height to deal with as well.  So that will change the game plan significantly and I believe that Abby Pakes will come through this time.  Though Astro and Boston are promising to give a good account of themselves and Jay the lab is coming along brilliantly.

We finished late because it rained big spots for quite a while and we didn't race through the downpour. The sausages were fantastic and I enjoyed every minute of it. If ever there was a night that the dogs truly love and the people are pretty happy too, it is Summer Flyball Thursdays. I am already looking forward to next week.

Gee I nearly forgot to mention the most important people of all, the extra folk who do not run dogs. We always need someone to cook the sausage sizzle, hold other people's dogs, load boxes etc and we have a little group of keen volunteers who show up to do this. So to Rose, John and Gloria, the night just wouldn't work without you.

Raewyn Saville 4 October