Andy's farewell

Although we will send him off at the last October training session, we
are also going to have a send-off at a Comedy Cellar show on Friday 24th
October at 8pm (drinks beforehand)

Tickets are £12 and I need to book them in advance. I will pay upfront
and will need yours by the end of this month please :- )

http://www.southhillpark.org.uk/15489/shows/the-comedy-cellar.html

Please let me know if you wish to go. I know a good number who do, so
should be well attended.

NOTE - I have been to one of these shows before and it is NOT suitable
for children  ;-)   Sorry.

Have a go Flyball at Desborough Park, Maidenhead, Saturday 30th

If you fancy something to do this Saturday feel free to come along and help me run a "have a go at Flyball" at this small show :-)

Plenty of things to do by the look of things, and the organisers are after guest judges for the doggy talent show if you are feeling brave !

Let me know,

Cheers,

Andy

http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/parks_desborough_park.htm

Flyball Fever Challenge

Val, Chris, Jan and Shannon took part in this trial of American format racing with dogs Harry, Lacey, Ruby, Freya and Breagh. We came 1st place on the Saturday!

Our 20.5 team ran on Saturday and were running faster than their normal seed. Fastest time was 19.77. Most of the heats we ran under 20. Our dogs would normally run slower in the afternoon on grass. Saturday afternoon , every single heat was faster than the morning times - we got consistently faster thru the day. Each of the 4 dogs was as fresh for race 5 as they were for race 1. From a pure dog perspective - they ran better and faster in this format. The Flyball Geek website was an enormous bonus and we were able to easily track when we were due to race. (Though my smartphone had a glitch on Sunday and we were a few mins late). 3 of the dogs from Saturday also ran on Sunday with the same seed time and they maintained their time of sub 20 secs with a slower 4th dog and consistently so. Kristian and Katie and the High Flyers did a great job. Our team had a great weekend and would like to thank Wuff n Ready on Saturday for box loading for us, and Time Flyz for box loading for us on Sunday and High Flyers for ball collecting. Would do it again and would recommend anyone who didn't try it, to give it a go next time and have an open mind.

Movers and Shakers... Basingstoke...

Well, the weather was good for us in Basingstoke, great venue (despite the thieving gypsies !) ... only one mover and one shaker (lots of dogs in "no mans land" still).

Shaker...

Freya hits 955 points... and is guaranteed her Flyball dog  award after Englefield ... nice work Freya :-)

Mover...

This is a special mover for the Rooky Racers, Alfie has been with us from (almost) the start, and  on May 8th 2010 left a successful starters team, that won at Imber Court, to go open... and what an opening points haul... 225!... in context, no other dog has ever had such a large points haul on their first outing!.

Over the next 4 years Alfie has been through the good times (400 &405 points in one day) and the bad times (let down by other dogs racing who had not renewed their BFA membership, so lost 6 months worth of points).

Other good days = being in the winning team at the BFA UK Championships for two years in a row (very impressive !).

Alfie is a "home grown" Rooky dog; never raced for another team.... this makes the 3rd Silver Flyball Award of the team all that more special :-)  Nice work Alfie, Nigel and Diane, our first home grown Silver Award*.

* At Englefield we were asked "who did Ruby, Lacey, CJ and Radley race with before the Rooky Racers"?... they were genuinely surprised to know they were home grown...  just like every other dog on the team :-)

Andy

Champs 2014, please read

Chris will soon be emailing the team to find out who can make the British Championships this year:

Catton Hall, Walton upon Trent, Derbyshire DE12 8LN  - 3 days starting Friday August 15th

But there is only one more chance for us to set seed times and get Championship teams and dogs running together, and this is at:

Mapledurham House, Reading, Berkshire RG4 7TR - 2 days starting Saturday July 12th

So please, check your diary's, and keep these dates free if you want to race at the Championships.

Cheers all,

Andy

June - Starters competition

Just a heads up, we have asked to enter a starters team at Imber Court on the weekend of June 21st & 22nd.

Any of our current starter dogs in training who decide to stay on after their 6 weeks are more than welcome to come along, see what racing is all about, and even enter your dog (if training is going well :-)   ).

1 dog entered already.... 5 spaces left... let me know.

Andy

June racing... another update

Okay, today I received confirmation that we have not got into Apps Court in June, so switching to plan B and  Imber Court, East Molesey, Surrey KT8 0BT on June 21st and 22nd.

If you want to add your dog to this list of dogs who are going let me know:

Chewy

Mist

Bruiser

Alfie

Tess (Sat only)

Paddy (Sun only)

Summer

Radley (Sun only)

Chris & Vals dogs

There will be starters racing, but so far only Amber is on the starters list

Sorry for the messing about been a rubbish week sorting comps :-(

Andy

Racing in June, please read

It looks like we will not get into Apps Court (Walton on Thames, Surrey KT12 2EG) on June 14th / 15th

This leaves two options, no racing in June, or, go to Imber Court, East Molesey, Surrey KT8 0BT this is the following weekend 21st / 22nd.

Imber Court is an "ok" venue, only 45 minutes to get to... but most of that 45 minutes is taken up between the M3 and the venue !... It has real toilets which is always a bonus.

There is very good chance we will get into Imber Court as it can hold many more teams.

There might also be starters racing.

Email to follow.... *sigh*

Andy

Dogs for Englefield (near Theale)

Both teams Sunday 25th May only.

Racers - Darcy, Harry, Milly, Freya (and Breagh... but we need spare dog handlers !)

Rockers - Ruby, Lacy, Radley and either CJ or Jace depending on the seed time ... will probably be CJ and running to a slower seed time.

In desperate need of helpers to ball collect, line call, box load, dog handle etc .... so if you want to come along and help let Andy know. 

Andy

Dogs for Basingstoke

As always, we will know which days we are racing about a week before the comp.

Current thinking:

Racers	Raiders	Rascals	Rebounds	Rebels
	Harry	Radley	Freya	Amber
	Darcy	Jace	Breagh	Tiff
	Summer	Lacey	CJ	Stout
	Alfie	Ruby	Maya	Tilly
	Tess	Ollie	Chewy	Roxy
	Milly		Jess	Pippa
	Darcy Sat only
	Alfie Sat only
	Ollie Sun only

With Bruiser and Mist on standby in case any dogs need to drop out, or, Alfie / Darcy teams race on Sunday.

Andy

Movers and Shakers...

... Results are in from Acremead...

Movers:

Jace gets Flyball Dog Graduate.... point of mention, Jace and Darcy are neck and neck as the fastest points earning dogs of the team... getting to Flyball Dog Graduate after 11 races is pretty awesome :-)

And Breagh gets Flyball Dog after earning a massive 160 points... not bad for a dog who spooked in the afternoon and missed a race... came good in the end !

Future Shakers:

If Alfie scores the same amount of points from Acremead in his next race then he will get his Silver award (First "pure" Rooky Racer dog to do this !).

Mist is 230 points away from Flyball Dog Graduate (will she over take Bruiser though ?!).

Freya is 145 points away from Flyball Dog Intermediate ... doing well.

Current seed times:
Racers = 19:61
Rascals = 19:91
Raiders = 20:99
Rebounds = TBA but will will be around 24:00

Next stop, Basingstoke, where Jess, Tess and Ollie will be racing in their first ever Open competition... exciting times :-)

Andy

2014 Charity Events

This year, as Flyball becomes better known, we have been asked by quite a few charities, and dog shows, to run Flyball demos, and "Have a go" sessions, for local events.

Unfortunately we have had to turn most down, there is only so much we can do with holidays, competitions and training !.

This year we have chosen two charity events to attend.

The first is on Sunday 6th July and is at Calthorpe Park in Fleet; there will be lots to do with your dog http://www.fleetcarnival.org/Dog-Show.html

The second will be Paws In The Park run by Bracknell council (especially happy to attend this event as Bracknell council have been so supportive in helping us find, and then let us use, Longhill Park as our training ground).

This year Paws In The Park will be at a larger venue http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/southhillpark and is on Saturday 9th August.

If you can come along to either event and help run the "Have a go", or race your dog in the demo, that would be great (especially July 6th) please let me know.

This year we will charge a small fee at both events for "Have a go" with all proceeds going to charity.

Andy

Some of our dawgs….

Flyball Record March 2014

BFA Members should have this today (email, or post in the next few days) if not contact the BFA :-)

Flyball Record March 2014

Darcy pulling funny faces at Crufts :-) ...

Tongue, teeth... flying !

More available at http://www.wattsphotography.co.uk/p848176110

Training times 2014

Taking on board feedback from last year, we are looking to improve the training schedule so that more dogs train together – plus a bit more time for a chin-wag between sessions. Also, Saturdays will switch to Monday evenings towards the summer.

From this Saturday going forward, the times will be:

For Saturdays:-

09:00 - 09:45 – Starters (from April)

10:00 - 10:45 - Open Teams (see list below) – 2 lanes

11:00 - 11:45 – Improvers (see list below)

For Monday evenings sometime in May onwards:-
19:00 – 20:00 (or later)  - 2 lanes (1 lane of Open Teams and 1 lane of Improvers)

If you have more than 1 dog, you can either run both in 1 session or run in both Open and Improvers session

We have increased the training time to 45 mins per session for the Saturdays and a break of 15 mins between the 2 in order for us to take a break and have a socialise ;-)

Open Teams	Improvers
Alfie	Ollie
Amber	Pippa
Sassy	Tess
Summer	Jess
Maya	Dylan
Ruby	Barnie
Lacey	Paddy
Jace	Lottie
CJ	Treacle
Radley	Monty
Tilly	Buddy
Darcy
Mist
Bruiser
Juno
Chris, Val and Andy’s dogs will fit in where they can.

 Chris & Andy

Dogs for Acremead...

... teams and days to be confirmed the week before (standard last minute process while we wait for the tournament organisers to get back us with a first draft running order... then a v2, then a v3 etc. lol)

Starters - Tess, Pippa, Jess, Amber, Olly, Tilly  (Saturday confirmed already... time to get some cross over practice in guys and gals !).

Saturday only - Alfie, Darcy

Sunday only - Radley, Ruby, Lacy, Jace, CJ

Other dogs either day - Chewy, Milly, Harry, Breagh, Freya, Maya, Summer + Mist and Bruiser, (who would prefer Sunday, but can do Saturday if required).

Probably camping over Saturday night: Diana, Chris, Val, Andy

Cheers for the great response :-)

Andy

Acremead Competition

Extract of the email I sent below... if anyone has not seen this let me know so I can update my mailing list, Cheers, Andy

The schedule for the Acremead Flyball compettion (Acremead Kennels, Drayton, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4EZ) comes out next Tuesday.

If you are interested in racing that weekend please drop me an email.

Dogs who want to try starters racing (against other teams of new dogs, and with netting in place) are welcome, they will race on the Saturday.

As Chris has pointed out this will be free due to the lack of training so far this year.

Camping is available, we can sort this out once our entry is confirmed.

Can you let me know if you want to race by 9pm next Monday please.

As always, any questions just ask

Many thanks,

Andy 

Training cancelled for February

Looking at the forecast (long and short term) and seeing the flooded fields around where I work (Egham, by the Thames), Andy and I have decided to cancel training for February completely (the next 2 weekends) and try and start again on Saturday  1^st March.  All other Flyball teams are in the same “boat” ;-)  and some have managed to find indoor arenas to continue training. It seems there is a lack of free arenas in our area as they are also used for horses who are not getting any exercise either. However, if you do know any free, please let Andy or I know.

As compensation for your membership, we have agreed to provide your first competition that you enter this year, free of any charge.

Tiz a very disappointing start to the Flyball season, but we spare a thought for those around the country whose homes and lives are flooded completely.

Meanwhile, keep your dog lean and as fit as possible to prepare them for when we do eventually start... I know our own dogs are going to take some work to get back up to “Flyball-fit” levels. Our first competition is at Acremead, near Abingdon on 12^th April, and we will be able to submit a Starters team is sufficient interest.

Watch this space!

Chris and Andy

Bracknell January 2014 Movers and Shakers

Points are up !...

Future shakers:

Alfie is on 9355 and in touching distance of his Silver Award :-)
Mist is on 2580 and in licking distance of Flyball Dog Graduate (in fact, Mist got 405 points at Bracknell, her most ever at a competition !).
Jace is on 2815 and in sniffing distance of Flyball Dog Graduate

Movers !...

Yes, we have a mover!, well done Radley for getting Flyball Dog Graduate, good going :-)

Special mention...

Well done Breagh on getting your first open points... 70 is a great start.

Acremead in April next !

Andy

Easipetcare discount for 2014

Just to let you know Easipetcare in Woodley, Reading, will kindly be offering 10% off your final vet bill again this year.

http://www.easipetcare.com/reading/

A small change from last year is that you must bring your BFA card along to claim your discount.

Andy

2014 Flyball box upgrade

 

At the start of 2012 we were the first team in the UK to start using the Jeroen De Keyser Mk2 Flyball box from Belgium.

And new for 2014 we will be upgrading one of our boxes to test the Jeroen De Keyser 2014 thruster design.

To quote Jeroen

“The 2014-model will contain ultra-compact linear mechanisms which will react faster and lighter than the previous ones.  Due to the compactness they will be more precise and so more reliable.  The mechanism will be housed in a PUR-body”

So, keep an eye out at training… if your dog starts missing the ball you will know they are on the upgraded faster box lol.

Andy

Bob and Lush discount for 2014

 

Bob and Lush http://www.bobandlush.com/ offer for 2014.

Please speak to me at training, or drop me an email, if you are interested.

1) Try any product for half price, or

2) Order a 7.5Kg adult dry food bag* for £18

http://www.bobandlush.com/dog-food-compare/

3) If you want to continue to use Bob and Lush you will be given a unique code that will give you 33% off every future order with Bob and Lush.  This is yours to use whenever, so you don’t need to make future orders through me

4) If you leave the Rooky Racers, Bob and Lush reserve the right to revoke your discount code

(* If your dog does not like the dry dog food I will buy back any left over food for £2 a Kg).

Andy

(NB, I am a dry dog food bore, so happy to talk about how to choose a good dry food, best and worst dry dog food, and best place to buy… for RAW / BARF Chris is your man, he has freezers full of the stuff !)

Calendar for 2014

The google calendar on the website http://rookyracers.co.uk/calendar.html has been updated to show the competitions we will enter in 2014, I have also included where there will be starters racing (lots of competitions add starters racing at the last minute, so I have only shown those where I know for certain there will be starters racing).

There are only 8 further competitions we will be entering this year, as Chris mentioned in his last email this is because of feed back that there were too many competitions last year, it was hard to keep track of when we were racing, and it was hard to decide which competition to enter if there was a choice of four in one month.

Hopefully with only one competition a month we will get a lot more people turning up, which means more teams to enter, and makes things much more social.  (For new team members, there is the chance to camp over at most competitions and make a weekend of it !).

Acremead (includes starters racing) April 12/13

Basingstoke (includes starters racing) May 17/18

Apps Court Farm June 14/15

Mapledurham July 12/13

Fairview Farm August 2/3

BFA Championships August 15/16/17

Padworth (Theale) September 6/7

Apps Court Farm October 11/12

(Full venue address details can be found if you click on the google calendar entry).

Provisional dates for starters training have also been put up.  After the bad weather last year, and the year before, we have decided to push training back from early March to late April.  It also looks like we will only offer a single starters course this year; we only have a couple of spaces left, so if you are considering trying Flyball with your dog let Chris know asap.

The switch to, and from, Saturday and Monday evening training is also shown on the google calendar.

Hopefully the website will be updated soon for 2014, unfortunately the hard drive containing the website code has failed and lost all the source code, and we cannot easily make changes without it... so might take a while!.

Any questions let me know !,

Andy

Stats, more stats and damn lies !

Okay,

I have a spread sheet of data from Bracknell giving various information about how all the dogs (and handlers!) got on last Saturday.

This is just a bit of fun, remember lots of people were running different dogs, dogs were in teams with dogs they had not raced with before, different jump heights, different dog orders etc. etc. so don't read too much into my stats*
 (* these stats have not been checked, and will most likely be completely fictitious lol !)

I don't remember the running order for the dogs in Raiders, but if you do remember let me know and I can get any of the following added: CJ, Harry, Breagh, Freya, Milly.

So... onto these stats !.

Fastest dog - Single Race (fastest one off time to the box and back)

1) Mist - 4.39
2) Darcy - 4.40
3) Jace - 4.53
4) Lacey - 4.68
5) Alfie - 4.71
6) Summer - 4.93
7) Ruby - 5.05
8) Radley - 5.09

Consistent dog - All races, average time

1) Darcy - 4.55
2) Jace - 4.64
3) Mist - 4.70
4) Lacey - 4.80
5) Alfie - 4.92
6) Summer - 5.20
7) Ruby - 5.31
8) Radley - 5.32

Stamina dog - Time difference between the first race of the day and last race of the day

(Racers ran 23 races and Rascals ran 14 races, hence the big difference !)

1) Radley - 0.03
2) Ruby - 0.04
2) Jace - 0.04
4) Lacey - 0.09
5) Darcy - 0.12
6) Mist - 0.32
7) Alfie - 0.35
8) Summer - 0.46

Most fault lights (!)

1) Nigel and Alfie - 5
2) Jan and Darcy - 2
2) Jan and Ruby - 2
2) Sandra and Jace - 2
2) Julie and Radley - 2
6) Diana and Summer - 1

Most perfect cross overs

1) Nigel and Alfie - 7
2) Jan and Darcy - 5
3) Sandra and Jace - 4
3) Julie and Radley - 4
5) Suzie and Mist - 2
5) Jan and Ruby - 2

How close to a rolling start

1) Diana and Summer - 0.02
2) Shannon and Lacey - 0.06

Average cross over gap - excluding lights and HUGE gaps .... *ahem* 4.61 seconds Sandra and Jace :-)

1) Summer - 0.15
1) Alfie - 0.15
3) Lacey - 0.16
4) Radley - 0.27
5) Darcy - 0.30
6) Jace - 0.32
7) Ruby - 0.42
8) Mist 0.45

If you want any other stats let me know !, and as I said, just a bit of fun :-)

Andy

2014 Competition Dates

Will be confirmed in the next few days.

Chris and I have taken on board all your comments, and this year we will only be attending one competition a month, so no "Flyball burn out" and more weekends free to do non Flyball things !.

First competition will be the weekend of April 12th & 13th.  There will also be starters at this venue (Acremead).

Andy