Koira Iron Dog

Koira came out of retirement for a weekend in November for a chance at earning the Iron Dog title. This title is awarded to dogs who earn at least one point for ten consecutive NAFA years.

Our Iron Dog team line up- all these dogs earned Iron Dog together

Along with thirteen other dogs in our region, Koira came out to this early November tournament, the first tournament in our region for the 2019 racing year, and earned the Iron Dog title.

She may be slow, but she sure is happy!

Tons of people got together to make this happen, including a stellar team put together of all Iron Dogs.

Koira is back in full retirement from flyball. This is the last flyball title she will earn, though we may try our hand in some other sports at some point.

Koira turns 11 in a week, and debuted in flyball in January of 2010, earning just 7 points in her first tournament. We closed the flyball book with a whopping 5 point total for her last tournament- and over 10,000 points in between!

Koira FMX, MBDCh

Last weekend, Koira raced in Multibreed with the Portland TailBlazers and earned her Flyball Master Excellent (10,000 points) and Multibreed Dog Champion (500 multibreed points) titles. She is going to mostly retire from flyball at this point, though she may come out to play a time or two over the next year if she is feeling good, and race one more time next year (again, if she is feeling good) to try to earn her Iron Dog.

Credit to Big Air Photography

She was a really good girl, and did her job great. She had a really good time too. I think she would be perfectly happy without the long car rides to and from Canada, though. 

We happened to be getting Christmas photos done by a photographer at the tournament, and she took a picture of Koira with her fancy new FMX ribbon while we were there as well.

Flyball Weekend

I spent the past weekend at flyball (and the weekend before that was spent at lure coursing as the official photographer). We've been busy, and this upcoming weekend is no exception, as we will be doing demos all day for two days at a local dog event.

Our ball bucket. We need more small balls, I think.

First, let me just say, the dogs did great at the tournament this past weekend. We ran in Multibreed for the first time ever, and both Ptera and Koira earned their first two Multi titles (MBD, MBDX). I've wanted to run multi for so, so long, and it was awesome to finally have it offered at a tournament in our region. A teammate of mine ran Koira in her races, while I ran Ptera on the same team on Saturday. Multi was only offered on one day, so Koira sat out on Sunday.

This is Deebo. He loves flyball, loves balls, and runs like a battering ram.

What was awesome was Sunday afternoon, for the first time ever, my new club was able to run a lineup of all of our own dogs. I handled Stella, while a teammate ran Ptera. The reasons for it are convoluted- basically, I practiced running Stella, and am the only person who has run her other than her handler (who owns another dog who was on the same team), and she isn't an easy dog to run. So when her handler needed to be in running her other dog, I had to run Stella. Which left another teammate to run Ptera, even though she has never run her before, and this was her first tournament at all. But it all came together and turned out awesome. We ran four clean heats, earning 100 points total for that race for each dog. Our best time as a team was 21.9 seconds.

I did figure out something I've been struggling with for a while, which was how to handle treats while handling a dog. I've always preferred running a dog with a tug toy, and both Koira and Pallo ran great for tugs. Ptera will tug, but she prefers treats. I am not very coordinated, so having a bunch of little treats in my pocket doesn't work very well for me, as I tend to drop them like crazy or fail at being able to get them out in a timely fashion. I happened to have some Merrick chicken jerky that we got from Chewy.com (we got it for free in exchange for an honest review, but we weren't compensated in any other way). The Merrick jerky is so much easier to break into pieces than any other kind I've tried. It doesn't crumble or fall apart, but can easily have a piece ripped off. For me, having a big piece that I then rip off small chunks to use for rewarding Ptera worked way better than having a ton of little treats. We went through about half a stick of jerky per race, which means a bag would last us more than a full flyball weekend- except that I had been using the jerky off and on for other stuff already, so we only had enough for a single day, unfortunately. I do plan on getting some more of it, as it worked really, really well for us.



On Sunday, we had run out of the jerky, but I did have along a big bag of Loki, which ended up working pretty well. I like the stick of jerky because it is a single item that I hold onto and then break up. The Loki is freeze dried lamb and is locally made (I purchased it at a local small business that is great, Animal Crackers). A lot of freeze dried treats either crumble or are too hard to break, but the Loki is the best I have found, as a large piece can easily be broken up easily into small treats. I did need to carry more pieces than with the jerky, but it still worked well, and pretty much every dog loves Loki. Stella especially thought it was awesome.



We may be a #ChewyInfluencer but that doesn't mean we don't also love shopping at local businesses for local products. Chewy.com is awesome, but there is something about walking into a locally owned pet store and finding local products that just makes me happy, so I love to support both.

In summary, our weekend was awesome (despite some chaos that I didn't share), new titles were earned, and many treats were enjoyed.

Positive Pet Training: Dog Sports

I have to admit to being a sporadic participant in the Positive Pet Training blog hop. I don't always have something to say on the topic for the month, though I am always interested in reading the posts others put up. This month's topic, though, is as perfect as a topic could be. Dog sports. I think that is the overwhelming theme of my blog, to be honest.

Me and Koira in the summer of 2013

Training dog sports in non-positive methods doesn't make sense to me. I do dog sports in order to have fun with my dogs in a structured way. Titles achieved are a mark of our progress, and as such, the same title can mean hugely different things for different dogs. Ptera, for example, has her FDCh-G title in flyball, achieved after a mere 6 months of playing flyball. I am absurdly proud of her for this. Koira, on the other hand, earned that same title three and a half years after her debut tournament.

Koira's turn in early 2013. She was enthused about the sport, but I was struggling with training her turn

As proud as I am of Ptera, it doesn't compare to how I felt when Koira earned that title. The journey it took to get that far was a long and winding path. Koira sat out of flyball for months at a time to give her brain a break and because she just didn't seem into it. I loved flyball and continued to play with Pallo in the meantime, bringing Koira back into the sport every so often when I had new ideas of how to get her engaged. I finally seemed to figure out the right combination of training for her, with the help of many, many flyball people, teammates and otherwise.

Koira in the early fall of 2013. Something clicked that year.

The first hurdle with Koira was getting her into flyball. She has always enjoyed doing things with me; the trick was to get her to enjoy doing something that involved running away from me. We tried a ton of different tricks, including putting a tunnel in instead of the jumps, working on different toys and treats, and probably a million other things I have long since forgotten. When she just didn't feel like it, we took breaks, sometimes months long, from practice and tournaments. Eventually, Koira started finding the game fun. I found the right combination of motivators for her, and figured out how I needed to interact with her at flyball for it to be fun for her.

Excited and ready to go in 2014

I can actually still remember the moment I felt like it all kind of clicked into place for us. We were in California at a U-Fli tournament, and I believe I had Koira running in Singles while Pallo ran on a team lineup with Gold Coast Flyers. I ended up just running Koira in her warm up and then pulling her from racing because her turn was terrible. A few awesome people offered to help me with her after racing on Saturday because I was despairing of Koira ever being ready to run. At this point, we were over the hurdle of getting Koira to love flyball and enjoy playing. But we still hadn't figured out the right training for her turn to end up safe enough for her to run in tournaments. Generous people brought out dogs to demonstrate a few drills, watched me run those with Koira, corrected me, gave me notes and feedback, and were just all around amazing and helpful. And those people gave me the tools I needed to work with Koira in a way that we could be successful in flyball.

Focused on her tug like a pro in 2014

Koira was pulled from flyball competition for months after that. Instead of running lineups and doing our same old thing, we worked new drills and changed things up. And while Koira will never, ever in her career have the most amazing turn ever, and occasionally still has horrible cringeworthy turns, she did develop a safe turn that even managed to be gorgeous occasionally.

Having fun, 2014

I have had plenty of people ask me why I kept trying to get Koira to play flyball, both when we were working on motivation, and when we were working on her box turn after that. I've had the occasional person say that I am horrible to keep playing this game with a dog who didn't enjoy it (back at the beginning). But it was never that Koira didn't have fun during training, it was that she didn't really find the activity itself rewarding. I could have easily given up, found something else for us to do together, and said that was that. But I knew that if I found the right way to show her it was fun, Koira would love the sport. I was developing as a dog trainer, and Koira was the dog I made all my mistakes with. As a consequence, she taught me more than any other dog I have had the pleasure of working with, and likely more than any other dog ever will (though I fully expect to learn from every dog I work with).

Box turn in 2016. It isn't always this good, but sometimes it is, and I am always amazed and thrilled

The lessons I learned from my journey with Koira aren't all easy to put into words. But the most important ones are easy.

• Have fun with your dog. If your dog isn't having fun, stop and reassess. Either find a way to make it fun, or stop doing it until you can, whether that means stopping for the day, the month, the year, or for life. 
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• Play with your dog. Play in as many different ways as possible. By making more things fun, and introducing new things in fun, playful ways, you can pretty much talk your dog into loving almost anything. 
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• Develop trust with your dog. Trust that you will keep them safe, of course, but also trust that if you tell them something is awesome, they believe you. Sometimes that means being really careful of how you introduce something new, and of how you use it. 

A deep trust with a history of fun and play is more valuable than just about anything else. You don't need to do dog sports to have this, but you do have to interact with your dog and spend time doing things together consistently and on an ongoing basis. Dog sports help develop this sort of bond, because the amount of time needed for training forces the opportunity to spend time together having fun. And for many people in the dog sport world, earning titles, or Qs, or a Pronounced, or whatever other markers of achievement your sport of choice awards, simply marks the journey you've been on, and shows you how far you've come together. For one person, a Flyball Dog title, the first you earn, is no big deal. For someone else, it may mark the successful achievement of a goal years in the making.

Interact. Have fun. Make sure you are both having fun.

At the end of the day, dog sports are a way for us to have fun with our dogs. They give us ways to challenge ourselves, an excuse to spend time working with our dogs, and often a great feeling of achievement when goals are met. And our dogs should enjoy the process as much as we do.

Ptera's Flyball Debut

Two weeks ago, I made a last minute trip to Canada. I didn't think I'd be able to go originally, due to work schedules and lack of money. But my work schedule made it possible, and a super generous friend let me ride up with her and stay in her camper van for the weekend, even though it meant she had to leave later in the day than she had planned. And another friend generously let Ptera take a spot on her club's team, giving her a spot to run.

Crazy little dog

Koira stayed with my mom for the weekend. The friend I rode up with has dogs that Koira doesn't like, and that don't like Koira, so it was just easier that way. And it gave me a chance to really concentrate on Ptera for her debut weekend.

She is super intense

I have to say, Ptera exceeded any and all expectations I had for her. I went up there figuring I would run her in one or two races a day, and she would maybe get her first title (20 points), or, at a stretch, her second title (100 pts). On Saturday, she ran in two races of five heats each, and she ran perfect. She didn't have a single error. One dog had an error on one heat with a dropped ball. And the team was running times in the 18-19 second range, which was crazy for my tiny dog's debut. At the end of the day, Ptera had picked up 126 points and her first two titles, Flyball Dog (FD) and Flyball Dog Excellent (FDX).

At Koira's first tournament, she earned 7 points. At Pallo's, he earned 17 points. In a single day, Ptera had exceeded all of my expectations.

Loving the game

Unfortunately, the team we were running with ended up with a number of dogs needing to be pulled on Sunday. One was sick (I think it was an IBS flare up, or something along those lines), and one started limping after the first race. Ptera was moved onto a different team to cover for the sick dog, and the team with the dog who started limping ended up having to pull the team because that was their only height dog. It was a bummer, even if it didn't impact my own dog.

Super intense and focused for a runaway over jumps back to me

I don't remember how many races Ptera ran on Sunday, but it was more than on Saturday. She ran like she was an experienced pro, getting some great passes, and with only two errors on Sunday from fumbled balls. At the end of Sunday, she had earned 376 points, bringing her up to 502 total for the weekend, and earning her third title, FDCh. I never imagined she would earn that her first weekend out.

I don't think I can even express how crazy proud of this tiny terror of a dog I am. Pallo debuted as a solid dog, but with a team who didn't achieve much. Koira debuted with the same team, and did better than most of the dogs, but had her own issues, mainly her box turn, that have held her back from really achieving the points. And my own lack of money for travel hasn't made our flyball career as lucrative as others, as we have to sit out many tournaments each year. But I am so incredibly proud of this tiny dog, and so thankful for all of the people that helped us out and made it possible, with carpooling, camping, putting Ptera in a lineup, risking having an unknown green dog from another team debut with them, and all of the people who asked how she was doing, who took videos of her, and encouraged us all weekend.

So that is my super wordy wordless Wednesday.
The video is of Ptera's real first race. The pictures, though, are from a practice back in July, when we did a team photoshoot.

Fit Friday: Tournament Wrap-Up and Glycoflex Plus Giveaway

Koira in her Back on Track jacket, chilling out after running.

The tournament this past weekend was great. We headed up to Ridgefield, WA for the weekend, staying at a Motel 6 (yay to no pet limits or pet fees) a little bit north in a cute little town. I shared a hotel room with a teammate, which was fun and saved us both some money, which is always great.

My team, Animal House, has a sort of reciprocal relationship with the host club for this weekend, Stumptown. Basically, they own mats for about one ring of the tournament, and we own mats for one ring, so we borrow the mats from the other club in order to have a two ring tournament, and we also send people to help them set up, and they send people to help us set up at our tournament. It is a great arrangement, as it makes things that much easier for both clubs. I went up on Friday (leaving late due to Pallo's seizure the night before, arranging vet visit for this week, picking up meds for Koira, and having a flat tire on the car) to help with set up. You have no idea how much work goes into a tournament until you are part of it.

It was all worth it, though. The tournament, as I said, was pretty great. One of the things I am the most happy with is Koira's performance.

I made sure that Koira got a nice long warm up and a bit of active stretching before every single race. She got to go out to potty, giving her a bit of trotting and movement. We did stretches to each side, bows, sit pretties, waves, and some low tugging, all of which helps get her limber and warm and ready to go. We also made sure to use her Back on Track jacket, which is basically a ceramic infused fabric that is supposed to help keep muscles warm and prevent cramping. Race horses use these jackets, and a lot of the top sport dogs do as well. I don't know that it is any more effective than any other lightweight jacket with the same coverage would be, but since I have it, I use it. I do like how well it covers, with it really getting down to the elbows, down over the hips and butt, and up the neck and down over the chest and belly. This jacket went on as soon as we finished our cool down walk after a race when Koira went back into her crate, and came off right before we went into the ring.

No pictures of my own dogs since I am the one with the camera, but here is a fun one of another dog crossing the finish line.

For our warm ups in the ring, I did the drill I've been doing with Koira, where someone else releases her and I reward her right after her box turn up close. The whole point is to increase her confidence and drive to the box. I couldn't have done it without the help of my own team and the help of other teams as well, especially Stumptown and Fierce Flyers, whose people stepped in when asked and helped out with releasing Koira when my own team didn't have extra people. There is something awesome about a team sport where not only does your own team help support you, but where every person on every team in the region will step up and help when needed. It is something I love about this sport for sure.

But, long story short, Koira rocked it this weekend. She started in all of her races (4 races on Saturday, 5 on Sunday, 4/4 heats both days). My start times weren't amazing, but with the exception of one absurdly early start, we did pretty good. My best start was 0.009 in the first heat of the first race on Sunday. Koira's times back in June and July weren't great- 6.0-6.5 seconds for almost every run. So imagine my happy surprise when she was putting in her previous times of 5.0-5.3 on average, with only a few heats slower, even on Sunday afternoon. She was double striding on the way to the box most of the time, but doing it fast. I hope with more work and longer on the Glycoflex Plus she will go back to single striding the jumps.

Wyatt, an Aussie who has been with Animal House from the beginning (and on two teams before that) crossing the finish line of his final title earning heat.

Something else that just helped keep the mood up and the energy there all weekend was having Wyatt, one of the founding dogs on Animal House, get his 30k point title, FDGCh, in the first race on Sunday morning. He is such a great dog, and his owner Patty is the "fearless leader" (as I call her to her amusement sometimes) of Animal House. So being part of Wyatt getting such a high title and high achievement really put some jazz into everyone on the team this weekend.

Team celebration and congratulations after the title heat was completed correcting and in time. It had to be a quick celebration so they could get back to the race, but it was joyous all the same.

So all in all, it was a really great weekend for everyone.

Now, for the giveaway part of this!

As I've posted about before, I signed Koira up for the Glycoflex Plus Challenge by Vetriscience (which you can still sign up for!). Basically, Koira is taking Glycoflex Plus for free for a month. I posted a "before" video of her before we started the supplement. I still need to get an "after" video because I forgot to have someone video at the tournament or at practice last night. But given that her times at this most recent tournament improved 1-1.5 whole seconds (which for those not involved in the sport, this is HUGE, teams often win by the fraction of the second!), I think it is safe to say that the Glycoflex Plus is helping. I plan on keeping Koira on it for the foreseeable future. And sure, some of the improvement is probably from training and drills that we've done in the meantime. But a supplement is just that- it supplements whatever else you are doing. If your dog has hind end weakness, you don't just give a supplement, you also do exercises and activity that will maintain or boost hind end strength. But I am pretty sold on this supplement being a big help.

And, thanks to the generosity of Vetriscience, the makers of Glycoflex, I am able to give away a bag of Glycoflex Plus to one of my readers! This means that if you sign up for the Glycoflex Challenge and get your free bag, you can win a bag that would give you a second month (or more depending on how much your dog needs) of product. Or, if you haven't done the challenge, you can enter this giveaway and win a bag to try, no strings.

For this giveaway, I decided to skip the gadgets and tech used for tracking entries. Instead, I'll track it with comments. Leave a comment here on this blog post. If you don't know what to comment, just tell me why you think your dog would benefit from Glycoflex Plus. But you can comment anything you like. You get one entry for commenting on the blog. If you want to stop over at the Vetriscience website and check it out, stop back by here and leave a comment telling me what other product you are interested in from their lines of human, canine, and feline products and why. Each comment is an entry, up to the total of two per person (one general comment, and one after visiting Vetrisceince). Unfortunately, I do have to restrict this to US shipping addresses only. Winner will be announced next Friday, October 9th.

Disclosure: I was given GlycoFlex Plus product for free in exchange for an honest review and promotion of the Glycoflex Challenge. I was provided with a free product to give away to a reader. The opinions expressed here are entirely our own honest experience with this product.

Flyball Oh My

Two weeks ago, I headed up to Lynden, WA with the dogs for a U-Fli flyball tournament. This is our first U-Fli tournament that wasn't in Gridley, CA. Unfortunately the Gridley tournament was cancelled, so we headed to this first-time tournament in Lynden instead to get our once yearly U-Fli tournament in.

It marked the very first time Koira ran U-Fli. Pallo has run in four U-Fli tournament now, but Koira has always either been not ready (reworking her turn, mostly) or injured (that neck injury last spring) when it comes to U-Fli, so it was fun to finally get to play it with her. Not that U-Fli is much different from running NAFA. The jump heights are lower and the timing/lighting equipment is a bit different, but otherwise, team racing is the same. A new change to the rules even makes the start light sequence the same. NAFA has always had a 1 second light sequence, while U-Fli in the past had a 1.2 second sequence. U-Fli has now changed to 1 second, making starting easier when switching between organizations.

The start lights still took a bit of getting used to though. I'm used to, on NAFA lights, saying READY (as the yellow lights flash upwards), SET (on the first yellow light), and GO (on the second yellow light), my dog is running during the third yellow light, and crosses the line as soon after the green light flashes on as possible. I release my dog immediately when that second yellow light comes on. And I'm normally a really decent starter, consistently getting starts in the .0xx range, and often putting in at least one .00x start at each tournament, sometimes with each dog. But the U-Fli lights don't have the yellow lights flash upwards before the lights start counting down, so my rhythm was all messed up at first. About halfway through the first day, I figured out that the little green lights at the bottom of the starting light tree went off as soon as the judge hit the button, and a second later the first yellow flashed on. So I did my READY when the green lights went off and more or less got my rhythm back.

It was pretty hot all weekend, though Sunday was better than Saturday and even delivered a little bit of light rain. Koira was running slow all morning on Saturday, and a couple times I thought I saw a limp. But when I trotted her out, not only could I not see a limp, but no one else (and I asked about five different people to watch her trot) saw anything either. The most anyone commented is that she is just a little tight on the front right, where her old elbow and shoulder injuries were. We figured it was just a bit of arthritis (she is seven and a half now, after all, which while not old certainly isn't young either). So I kept running her, making sure to give her plenty of a warm up before each run. Her times actually got better as the day went on, making me think that our longer warm up routine was helping get some stiffness out. Her last race of the day actually looked pretty great and she threw down some 5.2s, which were the best times of the weekend.

And then I took her out of her crate to potty one last time and she was limping. Bad. Barely weight bearing on the right left leg. Luckily, there is a pretty awesome vet on one of the other teams who agreed to take a look at Koira. The vet gave her a chiropractic adjustment and a massage, said Koira was super sore and probably as tight as she had ever felt on a dog. By the end of getting worked over, Koira's limp was almost completely gone. But for the safety and wellbeing of my dog, I let my team and the doubles team I was going to run with on Sunday know that I was pulling her. Koira would just get some vetprofen and rest for Sunday. She did earn her first U-Fli title on Saturday, Top Flight. So I was very proud of her despite the slower times.

Pallo on Saturday did pretty good. He wasn't running with our team. He was just set to run doubles with a super cute corgi from another team- the doubles team was named Short Stacks, and they were pretty much just adorable as can be. Pallo did do his stop and spin two out of the eight heats the doubles team ran, but otherwise ran great.

When I pulled Koira for Sunday, our regular team became short a height dog. In U-Fli, the jump heights are measured very different than in NAFA, and Koira set 9" jumps. Neena, a little cattle dog type mix, was our other height dog, and while she was perfectly fine, it's always nice to have an extra height dog. All the rest of our team was made up of large, leggy dogs. So I offered that I could put Pallo in Koira's place in order to provide Neena a bit of a rest from providing height. Pallo jumps 6" in U-Fli, so dropped the jumps quite a bit.

Sunday was cooler, which was really nice. Pallo ended up running great. I think he was in three or four races, and he only did the stop and spin thing a couple times. Keeping him crated and calm for as long as possible before going to the ring helps a lot with him not spinning. Koira of course wasn't limping at all on Sunday and would have been happy to run, I'm sure. But the long term health of my dogs is more important than any tournament, so she stayed on crate rest for the day. Our team ended up doing decent despite the swap-out. Pallo's issues didn't cost us more than a second here or there. And everyone had fun, which is ultimately the important part.

And while I know that that is a huge block of text to read with no photos, I can't take pictures of my own dogs. It is sad, but true.

Today, I am getting us packed and ready for a tournament this weekend. Saturday and Sunday at the Marion County Fair, in case anyone wants to come check it out.

Koira went to the vet yesterday for another issue, but was cleared as sound and ready to race by our vet. So she'll be running and hopefully it won't be a repeat of the last tournament!

Pallo will be running on Saturday only. He is retiring at this tournament. His long term health is more important than flyball, and every time he stops and gets confused at flyball, I am pretty sure it is a tiny seizure happening. And every seizure makes the next one more likely. So we are doing one last hurrah this weekend.

Flyball Tournament Wrap-up

First, the big news- Koira got her FM, the Flyball Master title. Basically, it is 5,000 points and is considered either the last of the small titles or the first of the big titles. The next title is FMX at 10,000 points, and the gaps between titles just get bigger and bigger from there.

Starting at the beginning though, me and Pallo had an awesome time at Friday Night Racing. The tournament was NAFA sanctioned (which means only full four dog teams compete). On Friday night, the tournament hosts put on a non-sanctioned singles and doubles racing, with all proceeds going to the local humane society. Pallo ran along with one of our green dogs, Dancer, to give her an experienced dog to practice with. We rocked! Our starts were super consistent, in the .0 range pretty much every time, and even one .001 start. Pallo also was rocking, running very fast, 5.0-5.2 mostly, and even got a new best time ever with a 4.9xx, breaking five seconds for the first time ever. I was very proud of my little man. Out of eight heats, he balked and spun on one, but it was a minor spin and he refocused quickly and did his job.

Here is a video of Pallo and Dancer at Friday Night Racing. You'll notice that Dancer is about the cutest ball of fluff ever.




I was able to haul all of our stuff in on Friday as well, so that I just needed to bring in the dogs on Saturday morning to be ready to go.

Saturday was a hot, humid day. The air conditioning was on in the tournament building, but it was pretty much only noticeable when you went outside and then came back in. I know it was way better than not having it at all, but man, it was still hot. That said, we still had a total blast.

Koira was running start and ended up running every heat on her team, both days. Our starts were pretty consistent in the .0xx range for the most part, but we are still trying to get some solid consistency. Her times were awesome though. In the past, she has run mostly in the 5.2-5.5 range, with a few faster times in the 4.8 ish range. This weekend, almost every single heat was 4.5-4.7. I knew she had more speed in her, and I am glad that she is feeling confident and competitive enough to really start bringing on the heat. Her turn stayed decent at the beginning of the day, but did degenerate over the weekend to a mostly 3-footed turn. Her times stayed fast though, which makes me wonder if we can get her turn to stick higher if she will pull in some even faster times.

We were only a few points away from her FM at the end of Saturday. Since I don't know if we will make it to the FMX, I wanted to keep her ball from her title heat (it becomes the trophy, sort of like the bar from the last jump does for agility MACH titles). Sunday morning, one of our team dogs started having some ball dropping issues, but everything came together just long enough for us to get the FM in the third heat of our first race. Everything from then on was gravy.

The only video I have of Koira at the tournament is from Sunday afternoon. The dog who was ball dropping ended up being pulled, and we ran one of our green dogs who had only been planning on a warm up spot on the team. In the video, the very last dog, Dash, is the super green dog. He did amazing though! He didn't hit any titles due to slow team times while he was running, but he did really awesome for being thrown in there, and did officially get his first NAFA points!



My start with Koira was a full second late, as you can see, but her time was still 4.6 even with that somewhat sad turn. This was Sunday afternoon, though, so I am very happy that she had any resemblance of a turn left, and that she was still pulling in some really good times.

The other big news is that one of our height dogs was really off on Saturday for some reason, so was pulled on Sunday. Which meant that Pallo was placed on one of our teams part time. He ran start for half of the races on that team and did amazing! That team was 3/3 format (meaning only 3 heats per race, rather than 4 or 5 heats), which I think helped keep him from spinning. He didn't stop and spin at all the entire time! He also kept his nice times, running in the 5.0-5.2 range for the most part. Very proud of my boy.

Koira's team came in dead last both days, 6th out of 6 teams in the division. We didn't really care, honestly. Most of the dogs ran great. Koira got her title. Dash debuted very nicely. The other two teams Animal House was running placed better, but neither of them won their divisions either. But while winning tournament placements would be nice, we are very much about going out there and just having fun with our dogs.

Between the nice starts I was getting, the great times my dogs were running, how nice most of our team dogs were doing (including all FOUR green dogs that debuted that weekend!), and Koira's new titles, I basically had a huge smile on my face all weekend.

Some Flyball Pictures

I just bought some of the pictures of my dogs from the past three tournaments. I've been meaning to get some for a while, and I finally took the plunge and bought them. Two of the tournaments were on dirt and one was on mats, so you'll see some of both. Flyball is such a big part of our lives, and yet I almost never have pictures of my dogs doing it. I am always too busy running them and not able to take pictures. It is awesome when other people get great pictures of my dogs!

*Oh, and I didn't mention on Monday in my tournament recap (because I didn't know yet at the time) that Koira achieved her next title at the tournament last weekend. She now officially has the Flyball Dog Champion Gold (FDCh-G) title. Next up, Flyball Master!*

And now, the flyball pictures!

This one is Pallo tugging like a maniac. The tug in flyball is used as a reward at the end of each run. (Check out the tug making tutorial I posted yesterday.) Some people use food or a ball or other toy instead, but I prefer to tug with my dogs. The tug also acts as a way to control where the dog is- if the dog is on the end of the tug, they aren't rerunning themselves, chasing balls in the run back, or otherwise getting in the way of other people or dogs.

And then this one is of me and Pallo as I am releasing him to run. I used to launch him off of my lap, with me kneeling and his back legs up on my hips. But I decided he was tripping too much from that position, and went to releasing him from a standing position. You can see that he crouches down, almost laying down, and then gets very amped before being released.

For comparison, here is Koira being release by the same method, where I just stand over them holding their collar until I release them. While Pallo crouches down and gets amped, Koira tends to rear up and look straight up into my face, then almost bounce forward. Unfortunately, it makes for very irregular start times since the amount of bounce changes each time. Because of that, I am working on finding a different, more effective starting method for the two of us.

Koira really flattens out when jumping, but certainly clears the jumps with room to spare. Our agility instructor (did I mention that we took an agility class?) said that Koira jumps too flat. I think it is probably because of our flyball practice. And I like her flat jumping style, it makes for a faster flyball dog!

With ten feet between each jump, Koira can easily single stride (only touch the ground once between each jump). She does great with extending those back legs out to keep from hitting the jumps with her feet. And I just love the front foot partially tucked in, because it is adorable.

And then, a box turn picture of Koira. Unfortunately, she doesn't really have much of a box turn in this picture... Neither of her back feet ever actually touched the box during this turn, which I am not too fond of. But, if this is what her turn is going to be like, at least I get to play with my dog, and at least she gets to have fun.

In any case, I'm super thrilled with all these pictures. Memories are so much better when you have pictures to look at to bring them to mind. It also makes me want to take pictures at the tournament next week. I've been really holding back on taking pictures at flyball tournaments for a while, both because I've been busy and because I just wasn't enjoying it that much. So many people take advantage and just assume someone will take great pictures of their dog and give them to them for free, and it was getting on my nerves (especially after I spent a lot of money on a new camera and a new lens this past spring). But, I enjoy taking pictures, and I think I'll try to get some more of them at this next tournament.

All photos shown in this post were taken by David Eastman, and were shared on this blog with his permission after I purchased digital copies for personal use.

Iron Dog

Neither of my dogs have earned the award Iron Dog from NAFA. Neither of them are old enough for it. But I seriously love the idea.

The Iron Dog award was announced at the end of the 2011 racing year. Instead of a title based off of points, as all other awards in NAFA flyball, the Iron Dog is based off of years. A dog earns the Iron Dog award by earning at least one point per year for ten consecutive racing years.

Basically, Iron Dog is a reward for longevity and perseverance, rather than speed.

To get points in NAFA, the team your dog is on must put up decent times. Each dog on the team earns 25 points per heat under 24 seconds, 5 points for each heat 24-28 seconds, 1 point for each heat 28-32 seconds, and no points for heats above 32 seconds. Most clubs can put together teams that run consistently in the 24 second range these days, though it used to be much harder years ago.

Even with running under 24 seconds in every heat, it takes a lot of heats to earn titles. The first few titles come easily. A single heat under 24 seconds is enough for a dog to earn their first flyball title, FD. Once you get up into the higher titles, though, there are a ton of heats, races, and tournaments represented by each title. A Flyball Master (FM, which is what Pallo currently has) takes 5,000 points to achieve. It is another 5,000 points until the next title, FMX. An ONYX, which is a major achievement to be celebrated, takes 20,000 points. A good haul of points at a tournament is somewhere around 400 per day (though some dogs haul in 700 or more at some tournaments). If you figure 400 points per day, it would take 25 tournaments to achieve an ONYX. And don't even start thinking about how many it takes for a Flyball Grand Champion (30,000) or a Hobbes (100,000).

So, what does all that nonsense about points have to do with the Iron Dog award? A lot.

Because for an Iron Dog, you don't need to run a team at 24 seconds or faster. You don't need to travel to 10 tournaments per year. You don't need to run your dog full time every day of every tournament to suck up every last point possible.

To get the Iron Dog, you have to go to one tournament per year. Your dog has to run on at least one team, which runs at least one heat under 32 seconds. And you have to do that for 10 consecutive years. Iron Dog rewards those with perseverance and longevity, rather than speed and attendance.

Does this mean I don't care about what titles my dogs earn? Does this mean I won't celebrate every title as it comes? Does this mean I won't count points carefully as we approach each new title? Absolutely not. I love titling my dogs. I love adding those extra letters after their names. I love celebrating the new titles of each and every dog on my team, and the high titles achieved by some of the dogs in our region. It is part of the enjoyment of the sport.

But at the end of 10 years of flyball racing, I will be more proud of that Iron Dog than of any single title. Because it will mean that we kept at it. We showed up. We played, no matter what. It will be a celebration of all the years we have played flyball together. And ultimately, that is the goal I have for my dogs. I want them both to be around 6 years from now. I want them both to be in good enough physical condition to still play and have fun playing flyball. They might still be pulling in the same times they bring now. They may slow down as they age. But if they are still here, still having fun, and still wanting to play, that will be an award worth celebrating.

Even if it doesn't add any letters on the end of their names.

Flyball Pictures and a Weekend Recap

This past weekend, I headed over to Redmond, OR for the Mt. Bachelor Kennel Club Dog Show. I was there for two days of lure coursing and one day of flyball.

Trix, experience flyball dog, running at our weekly team practice

Both dogs were signed up for lure coursing on Friday night. They each only needed one more Q to get their Coursing Ability (CA) title. I figured that achieving that title would be enough of a goal for the lure coursing part of the weekend. Both dogs pulled it off Friday night on their runs. Their titles are now updates in their names on the side bar. I have to say, I LOVE getting new titles on my dogs.

Bear, a rather large mini Aussie, is debuting in a week in Friday Night Racing

Saturday, I just helped out with the lure coursing, answering questions, bringing pieces of paper back and forth from the judge to the secretary, that kind of thing. It was fun to watch all the various breeds and types of dogs run. Cairn City was erected on Friday, which was two large tents full of kennels and x-pens full of cairn terriers, all competing in lure coursing. They were kind enough to shelter my dogs' kennel under their tents when we had a major downpour later in the afternoon.

Bear runs so much like a lab, flipping his feet up over the jumps and not caring in the least if he barrels straight into anything or anyone.

Sunday was all flyball, all day. My team hosted their first tournament ever as a fun, one day, outdoor, small scale tournament in Eastern Oregon. It rocked. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, the tournament ran smoothly, and overall it went off with no problems. I spent most of the day line judging (sitting at the start/finish line writing wins/losses, heat times, and flagging mistakes such as dropped balls, early passes, and skipping jumps). A team mate was kind enough to run Pallo for me.

On our team, Chester the corgi achieved his Flyball Dog (FD) title. He ran part time on the team at this tournament, and in only one heat at his last. He rocked it.



Also, he has the cutest little bunny butt ever.



Now, me and the dogs are off for a weekend at the coast. My sister's birthday was this week, so we are doing a family camping trip. Pallo unfortunately seems like he may be hurt as he was skipping jumps and bailing out on running at flyball practice this week. He is going to be so mad at being on crate rest while camping!

Lure coursing and flyball

Don't forget to check out my Happy Tails Canine Spa review and enter the giveaway. And of course participate in the blog hop for a chance to read about more products reviewed and enter some more awesome giveaways.

This week we lucked out and had practice in two sports, both lure coursing and flyball. We headed out for a very small group lure coursing practice on Tuesday evening, with a total of six dogs there to run the lure.

I ran each of my dogs by themselves twice, then, just for kicks, ran them together for the last one.

I had someone else release my dogs for me, so that I had a chance to get some pictures of them. My conclusion is that I need a longer lens to get seriously good lure coursing pictures. And that Koira is WAY faster than Pallo (at least in lure coursing, since their times are about the same in flyball). I did also act as catcher for the two whippets who came out to practice (the other two dogs were a miniature Poodle and a shepherd mix puppy).



Watching those whippets run is always pretty amazing.



Then, on Thursday, we headed off to our regular team flyball practice. Since I learned a lot about my camera's settings while at the flyball tournament last weekend, I decided to try for some new pictures of the dogs using my new knowledge. I think there is a lot of room for improvement still, but that these are way better than the ones I took last time I pulled out the camera at practice.

Team dog Joy, still learning her box turn

And, of course, the highlights of practice are some basic achievements. Pallo ran steady. It is basically just expected of him now.

Tank, a solid team dog

Koira, on the other hand, had some awesome work (which for her is worth remarking on). After racing on Saturday at the tournament, I got some great advice from a couple of very experienced flyball trainers about how to work on Koira's box turn. I tried it out for the first time at practice, and I have to say, it looks like this may be the method we needed to find.

Zip, a slightly crazy but ultimately loving and adorable team dog, who has become way more reliable than anyone would have thought possible a year ago. 

Basically, Koira didn't have a single double hitting issue. She wasn't super solidly amazing every time, but her turns looked good, she snapped off the box quickly, straight to her tug, and she had NO double hitting or readjusting of her feet. Hopefully with steady training sessions she will be able to relearn a proper box turn this time. One that sticks!


PS: You may have noticed a slight change in the sidebar, if you are observant. Yes, Pallo earned three new titles this past weekend, his first U-Fli titles. Way to go little man!

What a wonderful weekend!

Friday, I arrived early at the tournament site to set up crates and get the dogs walked before Friday Night Racing started at 5:00. There ended up being a handler and dog stuck in traffic who couldn't make their spot, so Pallo ran as well as Koira.

Koira ran awesome. I was very, very proud of her. We ran in singles, which meant I had to try to start my dogs. The best start I got was a -.006 (we weren't rerunning false starts in singles). The worst I got was 1. something seconds. Safe to say I probably shouldn't be running the start dog at any tournaments in the near future. Koira and Pallo both ran awesome, and each had a best time (line to line time) of 4.9 and change.

Saturday went pretty good. Pallo was running with our Omegas team, and had four races for the day. Unfortunately, I am still trying to get him to potty regularly outside while at tournaments, and he had to repeat the last year's debacle of pooping in the ring. It seems like no matter how long I walk this dog outside before a race, it just doesn't matter. Other than that, though, he ran really well. He did drop his ball early a handful of times, but mostly just in the race where he ended up soiling in the ring. Can't hold in it from both ends at the same time, I guess.

Koira and Pallo both were running on Sunday. Pallo had four races again, and Koira was scheduled for two races. Pallo had a bit more of a problem with dropping on Sunday, but thankfully did much better with the pottying outside. I made a bad mistake of losing track of time while outside walking him and ended up late for our first race back after lunch. We got there just in time for racing, but made the team panic a good bit before we got there. So, not a great weekend in terms of mistakes, with one big one each day. But, we had fun, and I think everyone on our team had a good time as well.

Koira was a little rock star. Her division was running 4 of 4s (means 4 heats per race, for those non-flyball people out there). She did a good warm up run back and full run, then in the first heat fumbled the ball at the box. But, she did a great rerun. And, the other three races were awesome. Our whole team was doing amazing, and we pulled in three under-24 second times in a row. Koira's second race (halfway through the day) went really good as well, but the dogs were all getting tired with the second half of the second day of racing, so our times weren't quite as stellar. Then, in the last race of the day, one of our dogs got very tired, and Koira went in for the last two heats to help out. She ran great in the first one, especially with having no warm up and running in the other lane from her earlier two races. Her second run wasn't so great, however, with a fumble on the box leading to playing slip-and-slide off the matting on the concrete floor not only once, but on her rerun as well.

Overall, the weekend was great. We had an amazing food spread brought by our whole team, we achieved a lot with all of our inexperienced dogs running awesome, and our experienced dogs getting right on down to business. We had a couple of really close races each day, which always gets the heart pounding as you watch the two anchor dogs racing for the finish line. Our newest team members did an awesome job with their first tournament, helping out with running dogs, calling passes, ball hopping, taking stats, and jumping in anywhere they felt they could help.

And, you may have noticed. Koira has letters behind her name! I have to wait for the host club to finish scoring and send everything in to NAFA for it to be official, but I believe Koira earned not only her Flyball Dog (FD) title, but I think she got her Flyball Dog Excellent (FDX) as well. Whatever points my dogs came home with, I am very proud of both of them for an awesome weekend!

I will post videos later, after I get a chance to recover some and go through them. And, hopefully, a few more pictures as well once I get in contact with the people who had cameras at the event.

Flyball in Canada

Well, despite a lack of pictures from the weekend, I can no longer hold off on posting about our awesome trip to Canada for flyball. Instead, I will include pictures of Pallo from today, doing tricks.



Koira and Pallo both came along this time. Previously, Pallo has always been a bad eater when we travel, but I had the theory that he missed Koira rather than not liking traveling. This trip proved me right, as I had no need of the smelling canned dog food or any other tricks to get Pallo to eat his food. Of course, since his breakfast was a tender grass fed beef roast and lunch was whole flash frozen sardines, it might have just been the awesomeness of the food. Koira was her normal campaigning self, happy to eat, sleep, hand out, and be calm.



Saturday started out pretty rocky for us. Our first race went fine, but with a false start on every single heat and each person on the team taking turns doing early passes, it certainly could have been better. The second race of the day, Pallo's brain melted down. He started running down over two jumps, then stopping, looking confused, and running back to me. When I sent him again, he would do fine. This has long been a trick of Koira's, but Pallo has never once done it before, even in the early months of practicing.



After our five heats were over in the second race, I set to thinking about why he might be doing this and how to fix it. Then, I realized that the Open team we were running with is quiet. The dogs don't bark. And they aren't fluffy. Our team at home is loud, barky, and fluffy, and so was our Open team in California. I brought this up with the person in charge of lineups, who promised to put the two loudest and fluffiest dogs on the team in for the next heat, and also moved Pallo to anchor position (racing last, as opposed to third, where he was for the first two races). I also decided to pull out the big guns, switching from Pallo's little toy to the 5 foot fluffy tug. He is more likely to drop his ball when the tug is in play, but at that point, I just wanted a happy dog willing to do his job, and figured I could work with the ball dropping so long as he was happy.



Seems like that combination amped him up, and though he wasn't running the best in the world, he did run clean on the next race (except for my early pass, bad human). He also got his new fastest rerun time ever of 5.9 seconds, which is pretty good considering it includes his turnaround time.



The rest of the weekend went smoothly. My dog's brain came back, and he settled down and did his job, loving every minute of it. No new best times were set this weekend, though he did pull in plenty of times in the 5.1-5.3 second range over 9" jumps (his Personal Best of 5.0 was set over 8" jumps).



Saturday, Pallo raked in 499 points for the day, putting him over the 2,500 mark and earning him his Flyball Dog Champion Gold title. Sunday was an additional 475 points (roughly, I didn't count exactly on it) so he is over 3,000 total points at the one year mark for competing. From this point on, each title will take more and more points to achieve, meaning it may be awhile before a new title post comes about. For Pallo at least.



Green dog practice on Saturday afternoon did give me a bit of hope that Koira may be competing soon, though I am trying not to get my hopes up too much for the July tournament with her.



On the note of the pictures, Pallo is doing pretty good at a lot of his tricks, such as shake and other paw (for feet or hands), and roll over. He needs to learn spin, circle, and backup better. I am trying to talk my cousin into doing freestyle with him. I think he would be great at it.