Flyballing at Drax

This weekend we’ve been flyballing at Drax Power Station. It’s a surprisingly pleasant venue! And some quality Billy Woof time. The boy is just super and I’m ever so proud of him.
We ran on Saturday in a team of otherwise baby beginner dogs. They all had little “moments” – running out and whatnot, but they all showed bits of confidence and promise for the future so it was satisfying to run with them and the lack of placing just didn’t matter. At the end of the day all was lovely and fluffy till … Maisie and I had a bit of an accident – I bent down, she jumped up! My world went red, then very very black for a while!!! A broken nose and two black eyes, ouch. Real teamwork came into play as lovely clubmates sorted me out from a terrible state of shock, determinedly avoiding hospital with some deftly applied first aid and upside-down cups of sweet tea. Crikey, not nice at all.
Sunday was a quiet day of recovery, relaxation and walks. Young Tim had a good big walk with a couple of other dogs, Raven and Moose. He played hard with the gorgeous Raven – young Lab girly – and she was so tolerant with him but eventually, sensibly, told him to bog off, ever so politely but another little lesson well learnt. Later, Tim also had a lovely play back at camp with collie boy Eric, the same age. They’re both hilarious “roughy-toughy” boys with legs of odd lengths, and a firm forever friendship was formed, I think.
Today (Monday) we ran in the Multibreed competition. Flyball, for a sport that at first seems like a simple case of organised ball-chasing, actually involves a whole load of complicated rules!! The team name we ran under was new and so our “seed time” was a guesstimated declared time, and the dogs ran too quickly!!! We kept beating that time and exceeded out “breakout time” three times and so were eliminated from the competition, oops.
So no rosettes BUT Billy Woof gave his all every single run and he really did enjoy it, so job done! I absolutely admire Billy for his total and utter commitment to his chosen job. He gets so excited beforehand and then goes in and focuses and runs as hard, fast, straight and reliable as can be, every single run. Billy Woof, you’re my inspiration and little superstar! What a good lad.