Friday 31 August 2012

Food supplements

Off again tomorrow to the next Flyball tournament. Its a bit of a trek this time right down to near the English Channel quite a drive so another early start.  Hopefully the weather will be good and we get some good racing.

Chips been practising his Tennis ball holding technique today.




 And I have been taking some food supplements to improve my energy level tomorrow.



 But I am not sure that  this is want is normally meant by people as food supplements!



Monday 27 August 2012

Dare stare...

Auntie Breeze and Dare went out in our 1963 Morris Minor today (its now called Dobby aparently). Dare was in it for the first time.

I think hes a bit traumatised that it doesn't have seat belts fitted.



Obviously Black and White Border Collies are mentally tougher...

Saturday 25 August 2012

Compilation Video

It was a bit of a wet Saturday today so the boss put together this video of me !




Sunday 19 August 2012

2012 British Flyball Championships

We were off to the British Championships this weekend. Its quite a drive from where we live in the Midlands at the same venue as last year, Arbury Hall near Nuneaton. It has with some very picturesque views.




I was in the same team as last week with Dare joining us as 5th Dog just in case we got any injuries which fortunately we did not.

It had rained heavily so the ground was quite soft but as the day went on it got dryer so did not affect our racing to much.

The British Flyball Championships are the biggest flyball event to take place in the UK and there are over 30 divisions racing over 3 days so that's a lot of very close racing. The other nice thing is you tend to race against teams that you don't normally see and make lots of new friends, but more about that in my next post!

We raced yesterday and we enjoyed some tight contests against some determined opposition.





Chip gave us quite an advantage in the soft conditions as our teams jumps were set at the minimum height  because he is so small but super fast all day long.





We won the most races in our Division and also got the fastest time to become 2012 Divisional British Flyball Champions. Along with our 2012 European Championship a few weeks ago we are not having a bad 2012!




 We all enjoyed ourselves at the Championships and Chip particularly was flying yesterday...

  



 

Sunday 12 August 2012

My new personal best race time!

I had quite a successful day yesterday at the Jets Flyball tournament. Getting new new fastest ever time for me of 4.06 seconds in a race leg yesterday!




The previous fastest I have ever run was only a few weeks ago and it was 4.19 seconds. The difference doesn't sound a lot but apparently it is. I also did loads of 4.2 second runs as well so I was quite consistent during all the racing.

So thats 4.06 seconds to run  51-foot (15.5 m) over 4 jumps get a tennis ball from the box whilst turning at the same time and running back over the same 4 jumps another 51-feet to the finish line with the next dog in my team coming towards me and also racing another team of dogs at the same time.


  
The boss didn't realise that I could run that fast and I think its also the fastest recorded time of any dog in our Club so far this year has got in open Flyball competition.

Even faster than all those manic Border Collies in the Club have done (sorry Auntie Breeze and Dare!).



Chip of course was his normal reliable super fast little dog self yesterday giving those big dogs a run for their money.




 He is one very determined and fast little Terrier, he ran a 4.7second leg in the 1st race of the day and in the last race of the day. Thats what you call super consistent.





So we are having a bit of a rest today after all yesterday’s exertions. OK where has that Tennis ball gone ...








Friday 10 August 2012

Off again tomorrow but not to the Olympics...

We are off to another Flyball tournament tomorrow, we should change the bog tile to an English Flyballer!  So should have some more Flyball related photos to post on Sunday.

Me and my twin Chip have been enjoying a bit off Sunny weather and watching the Olympics in the evening on the TV coming from my home town.




I don't think anyone would mistake us for twins! Auntie Breeze and Dare are both Border Collies and I don't think anyone would think they are the same breed either... 



As you can imagine Dare is probably the most commented about by people who meet us when we all go out because of his very striking blue human type eyes.


Obviously I get the odd comment as well.





I hope you have a very nice sunny weekend watching the Olympics from wherever you are seeing it from. 

Sunday 5 August 2012

Flyball in the rain

We had the first of two weeks racing at Fairview on Saturday. We have at least three races a year at this venue and the tournaments are run by a club called the Jets who actually held the word record for the fastest flyball racing time of 16.75 seconds in 1997.

Me  and Chip raced in the same team again but we had a new first (lead) dog so we had a different name from last week, Lightning Shocks .  The normal order of dogs in this team was Teddy (Lilac Border Collie) Java (Lab/English Springer Spaniel) Me (English Shepherd) and Chip (Patterdale Terrier). This is us getting ready to race yesterday.


I think I was quite keen to get started in that race.

We did OK and got a 3rd place in our Division and set a new fastest team time off 18.27 in the very first race which was faster than the last two weeks teams that me and Chip raced  even the one that won the European Championship last week. But we did fizzle out in the afternoon so we will have to work on our changeovers in next weeks racing.

You do get an idea off just how little Chip is in that photo as he is being held. He is only about the size off a normal domestic cat (but don't tell him that!) 


It did rain a in the morning but we missed most off it when weactually raced. But if we didn't have rain the grass wouldn't be nice and green.




Thursday 2 August 2012

Quite before the Storm

I have all had a bit of a quite week so far after last weekends excitement. We were at obedience training as normal on Wednesday evening and then out for our normal walks for the rest of the week to our local park.



I don't think that you cant beat a bit of Tennis ball munching to chill you right out.




Off to another flyball tournament this weekend and its the start of Flyball racing three weekend in a row. Hope the weather stays nice for them all.