Like two giants passing in the night

The ARFF flyball club members have been busy so far this year! We raced three teams at Mardi Gras Madness and are busy getting ready for The Hangover tournament in Manchester and the Flyball Grand Prix in Seekonk, both new racing venues for most of the current ARFF members.

This weekend we had a record number of dogs at practice, including two from another local club. We also ran our two teams, Tug Thugs and Muttley Crew, against each other for the first time in practice. We had to do a bit of handler juggling, but the dogs took it in stride.

Mardi Gras, Fitchburg MA, Feb 13-14 2010

We just finished our first tournament of 2010. It was put on by Weston Whirlwinds. This is a 2 ring tournament, best 3 out of 5 and eliminations at the end of the second day. This is also our one year anniversary of our first tournament with what we now call ARFF 2.0.

Muttley Crew started off slowly, their starts were erratic, and passing was spotty.
Towards the end of the first day, things started to come together. Les worked with Stacey on her starts. Once the starts were more consistent, the team seemed to gel.

Starts can't be practiced without lights. The only place we can experience starts is at a tournament. We were short handed and decided we would give up pass coaching for start coaching. Our passing suffered a little, but our starts were much more consistent and Stacey had something to build on.

We didn't have the speed of some of the teams in our division, but we were running clean and tight, accumulating over 775 points and a fourth place finish in Multibreed 1.

One highlight of the tournament was an elimination race with Revolution Flyball.
We had a tied heat, and the race was also a tie. Very exciting.

Tug Thugs started the tournament out great. All our practice paid off and we started out like pro’s. Our next race went downhill, it was a reality check that we have to stay organized.

After that, the team got their act together and performed well. Our passing was some of the best we’ve had in a tournament. We had a couple of issues with our dogs. We changed a line up on the fly and made the best with what we had.
Tug Thugs finished second in Open 2 with 750 points.

We would like to thank Sarah and Seven for running with Tug Thugs.

Whit and Rockit shared a spot with Tug Thugs as well as running full time with Mutlley Crew.

Brags:

Whit earned his FDCh-G

Rockit earned her FM

Flyball MAINEiacs Boothbay Harbor Nov 7-8 2009

Flyball MAINEia Nov 7th and 8th Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
This is our last tournament of 2009, we arrived at Boothbay Harbor Friday afternoon for set up and some single dog racing.
We'll be running Muttly Crew (MC) in Multi and Tug Thugs (TT) in Open. Muttley Crew will run Eika, Whit, Rockit and Secret. Tug Thugs will have Bounce (Rebecca's dog from Maineiacs) Mandy, Acorn, Secret, Seven (Sarah's dog from Boston Stragglers) and Spec (Kay's dog from Boston Stragglers).

We had a crazy schedule, between our two teams and our partners at Boston Stragglers, we had some back to back races and team member shuffling. Our teams were very organized, the crew chief concept worked well and everyone was on top of it.
MC is in Multi 1 against a very fast team from Ruff Enuff, their Reg team ran a 15.7 at this tournament.
TT will have three different height dogs, but the first three dogs will be the same.
MC started Saturday morning very safe, their passing was wide but got a good sense of where their dogs were. We sorted out some traffic flow problems in the lanes and they worked on their passing all tournament. They started getting consistent on Sunday, Stacey was also more consistent with her starts. They had an 18.12 with Secret in the lineup. Muttley Crew finished 2nd in Multi 1.
TT had a challenging tournament. I don't think we ever got into a groove with the passing, possibly more coaching in the lanes will help that. We did have to jump three different heights, but all in all we had a good tournament with some good racing. Tug Thugs 3rd in Open 2.
The season is over. We started in February with our first tournament, we did seven tournaments from Fitchburg to New Brunswick Canada. We would like to thank all the handlers and their dogs that helped us out and ran with our open team. We truly could not have done it without you. The Flyball community is fantastic and it's great to feel a part of it.
We had to learn on the fly and to gel as a team, we're still together and plan on running our own tournament in July. We have a lot to learn, but the team has a direction and a common goal. We'll be practicing all winter and hopefully start next year where we left off.

New Brunswick Canada Oct 3-4 2009

Spooktacular Oct 3rd and 4th New Brunswick, Canada.
Friday morning we headed for Canada, we arrived in time to set up and run the dogs in single dog racing. Five heats and they were free. :)
This tournament was two separate tournaments, one each day.
Muttly crew was in Multi 1 and Mandy and Secret (ARFF n MAINEiacs) was in Open 1.
There were only 22 teams so there were fewer divisions. Muttly crew ran 3 out of 5 that end in elimination rounds. ARFF n MAINEiacs ran 4 out of 4.
Muttly Crew started out rough Sat morning, but got it together the rest of the day. Unfortunately the one team that should have given them a run for their money must have had problems with their dogs.
Muttly Crew came in first place both days and ran their best time (and an ARFF best time) of 18.11.
ARFF n MAINEiacs never really had the speed to compete against some of the teams (all the seeded teams were in one division due to the low turn out), but they did run consistent (34 clean runs out of 40).
ARFF n MAINEiacs came in 4th on Sat and won a tie breaker for 3rd on Sunday.
Most dogs got over 850 points except Secret, she ran a few races for Muttly Crew and amassed over 1,100 points!
Eika received her FDCh-G
Connor received his FDCh-G
Whit received his FDCh-S






Some video of this event.

Survivor 3 Sept 5-6 Foxboro, MA.

What a weekend!

This was the one year anniversary of the tournament that Karen and Lester attended as spectators. E Gads was a total disaster, they weren't sure what they were getting into, but Lester knew one thing, it couldn't get any worse.

We really started in Feb of this year with a new team and a new name, Fitchburg MA. Muttley Crew came in last place (7th) in Regular 3. We survived a double ring tournament, got our feet wet, didn't know what we were doing, but we were racing!

April was Dover NH. We had been practicing like crazy and it paid off. Muttley Crew, 1st in Reg 2, Tug Thugs 1st in Open 2. We could feel our ears burning. "Where did they come from?"

May was Greenfield MA. Muttley Crew 4th in Reg 2, Tug Thugs 3rd in Open 2.
OK teams have caught on to us, we'll have to start working for top twos.

July was Foxboro, MA. We were talked into co-hosting this tournament as a last minute, no frills tournament.
The cards were stacked against us, working a tournament really takes the focus away from running a team. We were warned we wouldn't do well. Luckily for us, we didn't know any better, Muttley Crew 2nd in Reg 2, Tug Thugs 1st in Open 2. We are back and are strong contenders.

That leaves Sept in Foxboro Ma. I think this may have been our toughest tournament yet.
We decided one area we were lacking was communication during the event. We assigned a Crew Chief that would communicate among the team members and take a lot of the burden when entering the lanes. A practice plan was in place, the box loader was told, jump heights changed if needed.
It worked well, all the team had to worry about was running their dogs. We also started using a coach during the race. This took some tweaking, but mainly because we lack experience (It's only our 5th tournament).
For the most part, if Barb was running a dog, she backed off and let us figure it out the hard way. :)

We had our challenges with both teams. Whit was now running with Muttley Crew, Stacy and Jamie are still getting the hang of starts and passing.
Tug Thugs ran three or four different line ups, three different start dogs, it was an impossible task to get any kind of timing down, but they persevered and got the job done.

Both teams worked really hard all tournament. Muttley Crew was in contention for first place most of the tournament, it came down to their last race, they would have to beat a faster team to get first place. The way things were going all weekend they would have been happy with second. The last three heats were very exciting.
The whole team just came together, they had the best passing of the entire weekend and their fastest time after two days of hard racing. They won the race 3 straight, came in first place in class (Multi 1) and ran an 18.2!!! OMG was it exciting!


Tug Thugs were locked in for second place. We could have put Rockit in the line up on Saturday against the one fast team we couldn't touch. We decided we'd tough it out and run what we brung. Now we are down to the last race, Acorn needs 25 points for her next title (FMCh-Gold), we are running our slowest line up, the dogs are tired.
It's going to take some good starts and clean passing to get under 24 seconds and secure 25 points.
To boot, Mandy was starting, she seems to have slowed down a bit as the day went on and Lester doesn't have a clue were to start from, let alone having a consistent start light.
He purposely false started to get some idea where Mandy was at, did some eye balling and had a great start. The passing was the closest it had been all weekend, but Isa running last had some issues at the box, when the heat was over they waited forever to show the time, we're on pins and needles, it came up 23.49 just under 24.0. We went on to win the race 3 straight. Tug Thugs 2nd in class (Open 3).


Both teams pulled it together when it counted, nobody fell apart. We rose to the occasion as a club, it was a special moment.
I think as a team we have moved it up a notch and everything we learned at this tournament will pay dividends at the next.

Congratulations to our new title holders

Acorn: FDCh-G
Mandy: FDCh-G
Rockit FDCh-G
Whit: FDCh

Just Flyball

We just completed our first (for this new team) co-hosted tournament. We had a blast and people seemed to enjoy it.
These are the hot news topics:

Muttley Crew, second in a class of 6 teams.
Tug Thugs, first in class.
Whit, FDX
Eika, FDCh-S
Secret,.....drum roll.....Flyball Grand Champion FGDCh-30.
Poor Secret had to do duty on both teams at this tournament and accumulated almost 800 points! She didn't slow down all day and made it possible for our great results.

Just Flyball, Foxboro, MA. 7-18-09

Somehow Barb talked us into co-hosting a last minute tournament with the Western Whirlwinds (WW).
The problem was, we had never done a tournament, we had barely competed in enough tournaments to know what was expected.
We agreed to jump in and basically do what was needed. WW are old pros at running excellent tournaments and Barb has done many tournaments and would take care of the mounds of paper work.
It turned out to be a big hit, we had 38 teams compete and everyone seemed to have a great time.
We were told running a tournament and running our teams, the teams would suffer, and not to expect a great finish.
We had our problems on Saturday and it looked like this was going to be true. We regrouped late Saturday and got our act together on Sunday. We had some great racing with some good competition.
Our dogs got some titles and our team mates gained some good experience and insight on what it takes to run a tournament.
It was satisfying having Tug Thugs coming in first place in Open 2 and Muttly Crew coming in second in Reg 2. Satisfying, but tiring.
Barb asked us if we would want to do another tournament next year, we haven't answered yet. :)



Check out those wicked awesome sox!!!

Just Flyball!

Big news...ARFF is co-hosting the Just Flyball! tournament with Weston Whirlwinds, in Foxboro Massachusetts, July 18-19. Entry form is now available!