Flash, 7 months old, doing restrained recalls at this past tournament.
Damn!
This past tournament we went to, Baer didn't get any faster times than a 4.3. I was blown away- a dog that, less than a year ago was putting out 4.0's, was crashing this hard?
This flyball shit is a lot harder than it looks!
First, she was leaping over the start/finish line to the first jump. And leaping is a bad word for it. More like flying. We measured how far away her take off was- almost 6 feet from the start line! That's lost time.
Second, her box turn looked horrible. Here's her box turn from THREE DAYS before the tournament: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAjZiXR5xXQ. Now at the tournament, Baer was going out of the lane. Every single time. There's lost time.
Thirdly, something that has never changed, her striding from the box. She does two strides- then another giant leap of faith over the first jump back. Losing more time.
Fourth- she ran on our Multi team, and then ran a half spot on another team. Baer weighed 52lbs for this tournament- compared to the 49lbs she was, at the Revolution tournament. I don't care how many people bitch me out for having my dog be "too skinny", it's best for her when she weighs less. I can't see any of her ribs right now and she's got a small fatty covering on her ribs- no good for a sporting dog, especially one that's as active and trains as much as her. She got tired way too quickly- and her entire lay out got sloppy. I feel bad because I know it's my fault she got out of shape, but I'm not going to dwell on it- back to 49lbs we go. So...there's even more lost time.
Now, we had a BLAST at this tournament. Flash got a lot of good distraction training (more on that to come), and Baer did great running on two teams- she was a great sport the entire weekend and had a lot of fun. But now that I have an idea of how to correct what we're doing wrong- you can bet your ass we're going to be busy training :)
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