Since daylight savings kicked in at the beginning of October and with the exception of two weeks over Christmas New Year, we have had Summer Flyball on Thursday nights from 6p.m till 8p.m. We started with a raw bunch of 16 dogs and retained 12 for the whole season. Those who had done Flygility formed the Senior division and all the rest were Juniors.

We set out to teach the dogs to race against each other. The gear is minimal four fly hurdles in each lane, one box at the appropriate end. No catch nets not centre cloth. Why did I choose to do this. Well I watch dogs being unable to regroup back to the flyhurdle when they muff the ball at Flygility and I figured that if a dog knocks the ball all over town they need a good opportunity to get back on track. This has worked well with all the dogs orientating back over the first fly hurdle very well. Without a centre cloth the dogs had to learn that there was a dog running just over there and get on with it. Most of them have got that idea going as well. We started out running the lanes 20 meters apart and now we are back to about 8or 9 meters.

Flyball is actually faster than Flygility even when you put the bends it so it has given our good competitive dogs fitness and speed by keeping it simple. We can put the weaves in and sometimes the tunnel and make it complex, but no Agility hurdles are in Flyball. We can run teams with Flyball and we can do single lane work when the numbers are low because it rained or it is just one of those weeks where everybody is very busy.

One of the great upshots of this regular eventing is how good everyone gets at box loading, timing runs, starting and judging and keeping the results board up to date. At the start of the season everyone was shy but now everyone just pitches in which is just terrific.

But what actually made the nights was the sausage sizzle. The whole flyball night is a fundraiser for the Club and succeeds in raising about $800 per summer season (this is our third). We light up the barbie at about 5.30, cook the sausages and onions and put them in a casserole dish on the back burner and everyone comes along and helps themselves to bread sauce onions and sausage. It helps us to get through that 6 till 8 p.m. bracket where everyone is a little bit peckish. Sometimes someone brings biscuits. Like tonight, chocky ones as a treat.

The outstanding dogs, who win or score well take home another one of those purple ribbons. Purple ribbon rewards will be handed out at the AGM in early April. We have all won a few over the season for one reason or another. It is a great fun night and the dogs have progressed hugely from the start of the season. We are very lucky to have dogs of a high calibre in this group as it makes the juniors push for higher standards of training. Judy Casey and Tui are a joy to have at the top of the class as they are also ranked 2nd in NZ for Nala Flygility. But Chris Hutchings Boston and my Chan don't let Tui get away with much. One of the challenges is the 100% catch rate from the ball box. 10 out of 10 balls gives you a nice reduction in your overall times for the night, so everyone tries to get 100% Judy and Chris have risen to the challenge and the some of the juniors such as Maddy and Bella are knocking on the door with regular 70 and 80%. Janina's J and Poppy are both capable of 95 to 100%. My point is that the ball catch is the difference between winning a round and losing a round.

All in all it has been an outstanding season and we will now concentrate on bringing all these happy Flyballers up to NALA Flygility standard over the winter. They are all up for the challenge.

My heart felt thanks to Chris Hutchings for taking over the barbecue and buying the goodies. It is extremely hard to do this kind of fund raising on one's own. It has been a team effort this year and I am truly grateful for that. Bring on the next summer flyball, I have dreamt up some new challenges for the next season. Thank you to all who participated..

Raewyn