Luke ran his first flyball tournament today,and he has two ribbons to prove it!
A month or two ago, the other team that practices with us asked if they could use him in a tournament in September. Back then, he wasn't really ready to go, he wasn't catching the ball well on our team's box, and he had never raced before. I said he could go, but he would be unreliable. So, they passed on him for that tournament. Fast forward a few weeks, they asked on a Yahoo group for an extra dog for today's tournament and one next month. I knew they only had 4, and a team can have 6. So, I figured I might as well ask if he can just run the warmups with them, since he was still having trouble on our team box, and his speed was borderline too slow for their team (they needed a dog that runs 6 seconds or less, he can run 6 seconds, by himself, when he runs perfect). We discussed at practice last week, and I left not knowing if he would get warmups at all, and we thought if he did and he did well, then he'd maybe run a few heats (each individual race is a heat, each time your team goes out is a race, if I have that right) but only on the left. He turns to the left, so if he misses the ball, he's safe not to cross over to the other lane, because it just goes into the barrier. He ran warmups, and the first race was on the right lane, so I thought that was it for him, until our next race, which would be in the left lane. Then, just as the first heat was about to start, I heard someone from the team giving the line up to one of the judges. I found out he was running that race when she pointed to him and said, "4". WHAT?! I found the spot where I was sending him from, and got ready. I know in the first race, we had some mistakes. He missed the ball and ran past a few of the jumps. I honestly don't remember whether he ran the first heat clean or not. I do remember the first time he went down and caught his ball, I knew it meant he was going to run it clean, so I was celebrating before he was even back to me. We both had a pretty good time. He chased a Border Collie down the lane once, one time he went to say hi to the judge, and one time I stopped running too soon, and he stopped right before the line. But all in all, for his first time out and not knowing he was racing until seconds before hand, it was great.
Video to come I believe. He's the first dog from his class to run in a tournament, so the instructor was there taking videos of him.