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27th July 2008 Tai Lawr, Anglesey
This was to be our ‘grand expedition’ for 2008. We’d all got set to travel up to north Wales on the Saturday, race on the Sunday and travel back on the Monday. Most of our plans worked out quite well. We arrived on
Saturday (some of us starting out as early as 5.30 a.m. (I.e. stupid o’clock!) and some of our tents were pitched and ready by midday. The dog walking area contained a nice stream / river running through it and most of our dogs really enjoyed the cooling water in the warm weather (Barney was a bit concerned when he found part of the river with no floor, his first swimming lesson!). The trip to the local pebble & jelly fish strewn beach was not the highlight we anticipated but hey ho. All in all the camping part of the trip, including team BBQ was enjoyed by all.
The racing was a bit sad though!! We only managed 3 times out of our 15 races. It may have been down to the heat, the fact that the box judges were in a different position from normal or maybe the dogs just wanted to make us look a bit stupid, but first one and then another started to run out. It seems that it’s one out all out with our pooches!! Still never mind, could have been worse, someone could have got a bungee cord stuck up their nose!!
28-06-08 Daventry,
Division 5 (top division for the day!). We were seeded 5th in this division. We were again joined by Pete and Derrick so we had 6 dogs to run - Braken, Barney, Poppy, Bella, Cloe & Bailey.
We had to wait until 1.45 ish for our first race due to problems with lights and the lower divisions taking longer than expected. We had 2 races in the first session, we won one & lost one and then had to wait until early evening for our next races - almost floodlit flyball! We lost our first 2 races of the second session although we were running well - and Toby's presence at the line prevented Bailey from return visits to the box (don't think I would have risked it either!) and it was down to our last race against local rivals Nuneaton Kestrels to see where we would finish. Bella had started to run out in the previous race so she was rested and Poppy sat out (although she hadn't put a foot wrong all day - the promise of a sausage from Kelly obviously focusing her mind!).
Cloe, Braken, Barney & Bailey were set to run against the Kestrels! Braken running 2nd was a new one but Bernard managed to cope and got his changeovers better and better as the race went on. The races were very close but we ran out 3-0 winners recording our best time of the day 21.69 seconds. Derrick & Pete seemed especially happy with the result.
We finished 4th in the division, back in the rosettes, despite the waiting around a good day had by all, well done to everyone!!
08-06-08 Newark,
Division 3 for this one, again racing against 20 second teams so again we didn't expect to do too well but give it a go none the less! We were back to our usual team for this tournament but with Jensen (Ellen & Toby's younger dog) also registered. No camping this time (a bit near to home), we were there to race! Our first race went to 5 heats, our opponents only had 4 dogs and one hurt it's leg in the second heat so as long as we completed our heat we would win it. Easier said than done! Our 3rd heat victory was timed at 66.78 seconds! Poppy enjoyed the whole experience so much she just kept going up and down again and again and again and ....
We lost our next 3 races although we did post some fairly decent times below 22 seconds with a best of 21.57 (although due to various dogs running out we had quite a few 30 second plus times).
We decided that for our last race we would unleash the beast that is Jensen. Our opponents the Molten Metals were quite visibly shaken by this development. Jensen was chomping at the bit to compete in his first tournament but couldn't quite get it right, early days. Molten Metals beat us 3-0, we had a good time, the dogs enjoyed themselves. Some of us even got a bit of sunburn! We came 5th, our best placing so far this year!
17-05-08 Sutton Fields.
Our first outdoor tournament of the year was almost ruined by an unfortunate bung scandal, if Toby and Ellen hadn't been able to help clear up the situation, the whole weekend may have been lost. More of this later, first onto the racing. Bernard & Irene were away on an 18 to 30 sex, sand and sangria holiday so Braken was unavailable for this tournament. Luckily we were able to get Pete Cave & Cloe and Derek Griffiths (not the play school presenter!) & Bailey to run with us, so we were able to field a team of 5. We hadn't really had much time to run as a team and as we were again running with sub20 second competition, we all agreed we would be happy if we managed to get a few complete runs in rather than expect any rosettes.
Overall, the dogs ran well with times around the 22.5 second mark and a best of 20.86. We didn't win any races but did win a couple of heats and it only really went pear shaped for our last race after Derek gave us the kiss of death by stating how well it had gone up until then!
Back to the bung scandal! We had decided that Sutton Fields would be our first camping excursion of the year. Everyone arrived in an excited state and we pitched camp. It had been my job to load all required items into our car, a task which I was confident I had performed well. Tent pitched, car unloaded, time to blow up the air beds. Now in my defence we have 2 air pumps, one which runs of the car socket and a smaller battery powered one (not really up to the job - why bother to take it?). Guess which one had the air bed bungs packed with it? After much wailing, wringing of hands, parental questioning and general name calling, Toby & Ellen kindly offered their spare for us to use. During the nights consistent rainfall onto the canvas and kept awake by the luminescent glow from Kelly's new tent, I pondered on how much of a spanner I can be sometimes!
Story so far for 2008 is as follows, 2 tournaments attended, Market Harborough & Newark and a more consistent approach to results than we are used to. For both events, we have run in division 2, up amongst the teams running between 19 & 21 seconds. You would think we would not achieve much success against these teams, you would be right! Our results so far are two sixth places (six teams in the division - last both times), heats raced 10, won 0. But although the results are not brilliant, we are having some very close races against teams that were 3 seconds faster than us at the start of 2007. Our times remain consistent with best time of 21.24 at M.Harboro' & 20.64 at Newark. We now look forward to the start of outdoor tournaments and hope we can continue to improve our times (and hopefully results) and continue to enjoy flyball with Scallywags.
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