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Falcons Flyball News

Qualifying for Crufts 2008 by Linda Hardwick

I have to say at this point, that I do not run a dog for these competitions, I feel sick and nervous before each competition, imagine what I’m like at Crufts. My main job as Captain is to do the paperwork, so I just clock up the mileage and take my son along with his dog. If you want to qualify a Flyball team at Crufts it can take a lot of mileage. In 2007 we travelled 1068 miles over 5 competitions before making it.

The first competition was 107 miles to Scunthorpe, we sat around all afternoon and eventually raced early evening, the sun was going down right over the box! Did it get into the dogs eyes and make it difficult to catch the ball, who knows, but one of our dogs dropped the ball twice and we were out first round.

Next was 69 miles to the Beacon Agility show in the West Midlands. Over 20 teams were competing for the two qualifying places, again we were knocked out in the first round.

In practise our dogs were performing well, so we persisted and entered Leamington, relatively close at 63 miles. We did well at this show and got to the semi final, only to flunk out and came in the worst possible position – third.

A little more hopeful, we again visited Scunthorpe in August, the dogs ran beautifully to get to the semi finals again. One mistake in the next two races and we were third again.

The final qualifier of the year was a long way to go, 188 miles to County Durham. We had entered but this was a long journey, the team decided to go. The course was set up on a slope, we were to run our dogs down the hill to the box, this was not good news, our dogs are fast, it would mean it would be more difficult for them to work the box. It was also very windy and we couldn’t hear the organisers instructions and team names when they were called. The team stood to one side and I told them when they were running and which lane. We decided that we would start much closer than normal to try to slow the dogs down for the box. One team did not appear and we had a by. This meant that when we reached the semi finals again, our team were not aware. It was not until we had won the races and had qualified that I told them we had done it.

Beacon Crufts Qualifier 10th May 2008 by Katie

Although Crufts was only a couple of months ago, the qualifiers begin as early as May, you only have a few chances spread throughout the year to qualify for 2009. May is the month with three of those. None of us were looking forward to this as some of the top teams were there including this years Crufts winners. We met up in our usual spot a lay-by on the A14, with Linda and Matt joining us on the motorway. We arrived in the scorching heat, trying to keep the dogs and ourselves cool. When 1 o'clock came and we made our way to the ring trying to keep the dogs calm under the trees, nearly an impossible task. Our first race was against a team we didn't know, It was my decision whether to run Pepsi or Kumi and being on the left lane I thought Pepsi might be OK as this is her best lane but would she come back over the jumps, no. Meanwhile on the other lane they also had a troublesome dog that wouldn't complete. Now in Crufts flyball the race can't stop until one of the team completes, in the end the judge had to stop the race because it was so hot and was worried for the two dogs. Her decision was to not run those dogs for the rest of the day as they'd practically already done a day's racing. As both teams had a spare dog it was up to them.

Kumi had an injury last year and was given the all clear back in January so we had been building her up slowly. We were told she could go back to normal activity but as you'll know yourself you are always a bit wary, because they're your babies. Linda was Kumi's handler as my name was down to run Pepsi, you are only allowed to handle one dog. Kumi's not the easiest dog to handle, as she's so strong and quite feisty towards other dogs. Before her accident we had to try and slow her down because she would fly over the box missing the ball, but because she's put on a few pounds she's slowed down and manages to stop at the box giving herself time to catch the ball.

Race one was started again, we won two nil, race two we won two nil and race three we also won two nil taking us to Crufts 2009. BRILLIANT !!!! Only the top two teams make it to Crufts luckily we were one of those. Unfortunately Oscar missed the ball in race one and then Kumi in the second, but we didn't care, we came second and for just two dogs missing a ball each at the end of a very hot day, we were over the moon. The winning team comprised of Pepsi, Xander, Missy, Oscar, Kumi & Tara