gooster Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 The question I dread people asking me (especially non doggy folk) is 'what's flyball'. The simple answer is that it is a dog relay. There are 4 dogs in each team, and each dog has to run over 4 jumps, fetch a tennis ball from the flyball box and come back over all 4 jumps. It is the fastest, most exhilarating dog sport at the moment (in my opinion). Any breed of dog can do it, at the moment, all 3 of my dogs do flyball - Charliegoo collie x scottie, Eddie - mini schnauzer, and Shara - GSD. Training a dog to do flyball doesn't happen overnight - Charliegoo was terrified of the flyball box to begin with. At first, the dogs run in a lane of netting with the jumps and a flyball box - this means they can't really run out of the lane and round the jumps Then they progress to running with jump wings at the side of the jumps, meaning that they can run out if they want, but it's more difficult Then, they progress to running without any jump wings or netting The picture below shows Charliegoo doing a swimmers turn on the box. Believe it or not, Eddie has the best turn out of all of my dogs!! The height of the jumps changes according to the size of the smallest dog on the team, for 8" for dinky dogs, to 14" for the bigger dogs. Eddie jumps at 9" and Charliegoo jumps at 13". There are competitions every weekend throughout the summer, and teams travel for miles and miles to get to a tournament - last year we travelled all the way from Manchester to Knebworth for a tournament :o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirisox Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Are you back to Knebworth this year Jayne? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gooster Posted January 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Don't know yet - depends on what the rest of the team want to do! I wouldn't mind but everyone else may have other ideas!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lucyandmeg Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 What team are you in? I'm in the Hampshire Harriers with Meg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gooster Posted January 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 I'm in the Cheshire Set Charliegoo is one of the UK's top dogs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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