Horribly good Flyball tournament

We went to our last flyball tournament of the year yesterday and of course because it was indoors we didn't really get any good action photos.

But as its Halloween today this picture of me and Chip taken yesterday waiting to race is actually quite appropriate.


Very scary !

But I don't think Chip looks as bad as me in the next one, more cute perhaps ...


However we did had a quite successful time yesterday. Chips team got 1st place in their division the same one me and Dare raced in, we got third place, not bad. Auntie Breezes team got a fourth place in another division, so we all did quite well.

And to make the day complete I was also presented with my British Flyball Association Silver Milestone award. So not a bad day out.

Howlingly good

Its probably our Clubs last Flyball tournament of the season tomorrow. We are off to Maidstone in Kent for a nice days indoor Flyball racing.



I think we should do quite well. I am racing in the same team with Dare so it should be fun but I must remember to take it seriously.




And even better I am racing in the same Division as another of our Clubs teams with Chip in it. So we should all have a howlingly good time...

Wordless washday Wednesday

Autumn Sunshine

The leaves have started to fall off the trees in London so I think Autumn has finally started to arrive. But we are due for another sunny weekend this week apparently. So we have all been out in our back garden making the most of it.



Its does tend to make you squint when the sun is so bright.



But the warmth of the sun does feel lovely.

Wordless Blue again Wednesday

Foggy Flyball

This photo is not just the boss's poor photography it was really foggy when we set off to go to flyball training this morning.




Almost thick enough to be like a 'pea souper' that you see in those old films about London. But unfortunately Sherlock Holmes was not in the field in a horse drawn hackney cab waiting for us when we arrived.




We had a nice nice training session and all the fog had gone by lunch time anyway as the sun burnt it all away.

This is Auntie Breeze practicing her flyball box turns. The idea of the foam is to make you jump up horizontally and the wings to stop you running out wide. This make the turns faster and less stressful on your legs. Auntie Breeze does great box turns when she practices.





And we also did loads of zooming up and down over the jumps afterwards as well.

The Auntie Breeze look

When Auntie Breeze wants you to play with a tennis ball she doesn't just bark like other dogs might do she tends to give a bit hint by staring at the ball.



Obviously being a Border Collie this come very naturally as BC's are apparently bred to do this to sheep. Not something us English Shepherd's do however.





But if this doesn't work she then starts to use the Auntie Breeze look.




She can keep this up for ages.


And even does it from different parts of the garden as the boss moves about...


It tends to work in the end !

Wordless who's on Dares Chair Wednesday

Shield Show

We went a dog show today. We don't normally go to these showing type of shows. But it was run by Auntie Breezes breeder in aid of a local Border Collie rescue so we went along to have a look.





The weather has got much cooler this week so it was quite nice to stroll about looking at the different breeds of dogs.

Dare enjoyed looking at all the Border Collies in this ring but there were no Blue Merle Border Collies like him.


We all had a go at 'showing'.

Me and Chip got a 5th place in the miss-matched brace. I do find it quite embarrassing doing this sort of beauty pageant showing type of thing.




But not as embarrassed as Chip was when he saw the colour of the Rosettes we got.

Wordless look out Wednesday

Glorious weather

We were at our last outdoor flyball tournament of the season yesterday at Great Barford in Bedfordshire.

The day has some surprises for us. Firstly the lovely picturesque location on the banks of the Great Ouse river.



And secondly the glorious sunny weather which at the moment is in the 80f and is breaking records in England as the hottest on record for this time of year.




So the choice of having this flyball tournament which was run by the High Flyers Club on the cooler banks of this river was quite inspired.




The racing format was also different for this tournament and followed the one used in European Championships.

Normally we race in a league system but this was something called a double elimination. Basically its a serious of races in the morning to get a fastest time so your team can be seeded and then its a knockout competition in the afternoon in which you can lose only once to race in a play off. Its not as complicated as its sounds!

And even better I got to race again. Do you like the nifty colour of my leg protector bandages?



Auntie Breeze and Dare raced in Division 5 and only lost one race all day and eventually won their Division.

Obviously my teams racing was much more exciting. I was racing in Division three in the same team with Chip, Lightning Shock. We had another of our Clubs teams Lightning Bolt in our Division. So we had planned some very competitive encounters with them.

As you can see both me and Chip had been practicing our runs back to our tuggies.





Chip being a real show off is also developing his 'hanging on' to the tuggie technique and I think is probably practicing to enter the next Olympics in the Gymnastic event.



But back to the racing.

The other Clubs team got the fastest time in the morning in our Division and we got the second fastest time. So it was going to be very close. Both teams won all their races until we met for the first time when we were narrowly beaten by them. But we won our knockout race against another team to then go into the finals and to race against once again our rival Club mates.

Very exciting.



In the 'first' final race we took it to two legs each (the winner being the first to win three races) to beat our team mates in the fifth race. But as the competition was a double elimination, after a short break for another divisions final, we then had to race them yet again as they had beaten us in our earlier encounter.

Once again it came down to the final race with both teams again winning two legs each. With the light fading Chip being last dog in our team went into the very last run of the competition neck and neck with the other teams last dog to beat him back and for us to win the Division!

What a great way to finish the outdoor flyball season!