Last weekend Nikon earned his first flyball title! Not only did he easily earn the title, but this was his first tournament running on a team! And not only that but it was 111 degrees where were were and Nikon ran his fastest times EVER! We put Nikon in the lead-off spot which can be difficult because not only is it up to us to not false start, but if the other team false starts and we start over, that can result in the lead-off dogs running twice as many heats as the rest of the team. I was worried with the heat, it being Nikon’s first team tournament, and being lead-off that he’d make mistakes and start to wither but that was not the case. He was running 4.8 seconds which is awesome for him. My friend Falon helps me start Nikon. She holds onto his harness while I stand about 10 feet ahead of him to pump him up and run with him to the start line. She told me that he was running so much faster than training that in order to avoid false starting him she had to move back FOURTEEN feet! Normally in a tournament you will adjust your starting position by a foot or two, give or take, sometimes even a few inches, but fourteen feet means Nikon was blazing! Unfortunately due to a team member family emergency we were not able to run our last race of the day and had to pull from Sunday but Nikon still had plenty of points for his first title.
Pan was listed as Nikon’s alternate but Nikon did so well Pan never got to run so he raced Singles instead. Again even with the insane heat he matched his personal best and even unofficially ran under 4 seconds! I have video of Pan but not Nikon, since the person who always films was box loading for Nikon’s team and we didn’t have enough people along to run the camera.
I box loaded for our pick-up team (so technically I was part of their team). It was really hard because Kastle ran in the third position and like Pan, he hits the box SO hard it throws me off and makes it crooked. I literally have less than two seconds to slide it back into place and load it correctly for the fourth dog. Box loading seems easy but it’s nerve wracking! You have to know which dogs turn which way and what ball they want. Our team has two holes and three types of balls but some teams have four holes and four types of balls. Then if a dog faults they get to re-run at the end so you have to load their ball out of order. I had no pockets since it was so hot and had extra balls crammed in my bra, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paOMSi1XV_Q
Congratulations Lies and Nikon!!!! I bummed no video of Nicky Noodle.
Sorry about your team-mates family emergency. Seems to be a lot of that going on this summer. Maybe sun-spots are effecting more then the weather?
111 degrees and putting wet balls in your bra…yuck.
Since we are a small team, if one person is out that means the team is out (since each of us has at least two dogs). However I like having a small team because every person and every dog counts; if something happens to you or your dog you have the team’s full support rather than a dozen other dogs waiting to take your dog’s place. It’s a bummer when everyone has to pack up and leave early but the team will not risk the health of any dog, person, or family member.
Instead we had a cold shower, big meal in AC, and then went to Schutzhund on Sunday. Flyball, Schutzhund…my dogs don’t care!
That’s great, congratulations to both of you!
Congrats, Lies!!! Nikon is awesome!
Congratulations to you and Nikon! Holy cow, Pan is FAST.
As for the bra thing, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!