Lexi-The Awesome Flyball Border Collie!

Lexi LIVES for flyball–unlike Zoey, who merely finds the sport somewhat amusing. I’m pretty sure Zoey mostly enjoys it because it’s one of the very few dog sports where BARKING is actually ENCOURAGED! 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the sport of flyball, the dogs must run down a lane that is 51-feet long clearing 4 jumps along the way, hit a spring-loaded box to release a tennis ball-catch the ball-and return down the lane going back over the 4 jumps.

This past weekend Lexi ran in a tournament and posted a time of 3.99 seconds. Yep–she did all of that (covering 102 feet, going over 8 hurdles, catching a ball and performing a 180-degree turn) in less than 4 seconds!  

Here’s a photo collage I did for Lexi’s family a few months ago:

Riley plays Flyball?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am forever looking for (new) things to teach my (old) dogs.

Late last year, Zoey and I began learning flyball–a sport where a dog must be taught to race down a lane of hurdles, pounce on a spring-loaded box (simultaneously catching a tennis ball released from the box) and then race back over the hurdles to the owner.

One of the more difficult parts of training flyball is to teach the dog to do a ‘correct’ turn on the flyball box. Ideally, one would like the dog to do a ’swimmer’s turn’ where they push off the box with their rear legs after they have grabbed the ball.  

Of course, in order to show people what a good turn looks like, it’s always nice to also have a dog that can demonstrate what a ‘not-so-good’ turn looks like. Which got me to thinking: How hard would it be to train one of my dogs to grab the ball out of the flyball box by just hitting it with their front legs?

Well, it proved to be far less of a challenge than I had hoped: show Riley a tennis ball and he’ll pretty much do whatever you want in order to get it. It took a mere five minutes to train Riley to be a not-very-good flyball dog:

My First Champion

I suppose it was just a matter of time before one of my dogs could be called a “Champion”. Zoey earned her Flyball Dog Champion (FDCh) title in June at a tournament held in Seattle. Just two weeks later she earned her next title (Flyball Dog Champion-Silver) at a tournament held in Salem.

I’m so glad my merlie-girlie has a new sport to enjoy!