The Fox Terriers Return to Flyball

This is a picture of Harry on the flyball box taken back when we were running with the Utah Tail Blazers. His box turn is greatly improved these days--but he still basically pivots around that left rear foot, almost snapping himself off the box from a single point. And yes, that is a string of spit between Harry's mouth and the box. Aren't dogs great?

It has been two months since we were last at flyball practice with Dogz Rule! I still wasn't sure that I was ready to go back. But with our own club's tournament coming up the first weekend of October, and with Harry's continuing funk, I thought the time had come for us to head to Austin.

The drive up was a bit difficult--Iz's crate was empty. I didn't have any of her tugs in my training bag. Her harness was still hanging up at home. Too many things missing. But Mimi is never going to learn how to do flyball by sitting at home. And Harry was bouncing off the walls once I told him this morning when I got up at 4:45am that we were going to do flyball today.

The trek to Austin can't be done without some planning. It's a 12-hour commitment--3 1/2 to 4 hours for the drive each way plus 3 hours for practice plus time for loading and unloading. It's a long day for me and the dogs.

Since it is a holiday weekend, some club members had plans with family and couldn't come to practice, but I was very glad to see that SIX of our dogs in training were present. We gave them all a great workout. In fact, because we couldn't run any team lineups we practiced all sorts of fun drills for the green dogs using the more experienced dogs that were present. All of the dogs and handlers got lots of mat time--very little down time for any of us since it takes a "village" to train green dogs.


And now I have two very tired flyball dogs. I'm pleased to tell you that instead of eating dinner then plopping in his usual place by himself on the back of the couch, Harry stretched out right next to me. And Mimi decided that she had to be right next to him--resting her head on his side, in fact. In the past he only tolerated Iz being that close to him.

Perhaps we are starting to find new routines.