Update

Thought I'd add some pictures that I took today.

Barley beginning to look grown up

The girls
Fox

We have a new addition who has joined us. Tia is 14 months old and came to me as a foster. I took her in to save her from being put to sleep. She was terrified of people and new situations as she has been passed around and I am home number 6! She came here so that I could try and rehabilitate her but it is looking less and less likely that she will go :-S

She is such a lovely girl and has been through so much in her 14 months. As she has settled in so well and bonded so well with me and the pack, I feel bad sending her away. Oh dear as my friend said it looks as though I have become a member of the failed fosterers club lol!!

Tia

Bye Bye Mad Mutts

I made the very sad decision last week not to run with the Mad Mutts next year :( This was a very hard decision but one I feel happy to have made. I got a promotion earlier on in the year which has made me more and more relied on at work and unable to commit fully to flyball, I had to miss Acremead the weekend before last due to work and this is the second time that my holiday has not been able to be honoured. I feel I am letting the team down if I continue as they want to go North more next year and do Acremead four times. Acremead is four hours away for me so I have to have friday and monday off work, I can no longer guarantee I can get this. I don't know what I will be doing next year I may run with another team who do the more local shows or I may give up Flyball all together, I haven't decided yet. I am starting working trials with Neo in a few weeks and I'm going to enter a couple of Cani X comps so watch this space!

Shakerstone!!

This was a tiring one!!!!
I ended up having to work late on Friday night due to a massive glitch on our new computer system grrrrr! Got home at 10.30pm only to have to get up at 3.30am!! eugh!!! To say I was tired is probably not strong enough wording!!! I finally got to Shakerstone at 8.20 after getting stuck on the M25 for an hour. Boo hoo! I was beginning to think that this wasn't going to be a good weekend lol.
Saturday we were ring partying first division in, so I sat and scribed and drank coffee to keep myself awake. We then had a division off so I took Barley for a walk around the show ground. She was hilarious, I'd be walking along and suddenly feel a tug on the lead from behind. I'd turn around and she was on her back in front of some poor unsuspecting person who always fell for the batting eyelashes lol! She had a whale of a time! It took us about four times longer to walk round then it should have! She loved watching the flyball though! Her little ears went right up and she wasn't interested in anyone oooh! The Muttleys were then in, it didn't go well!! We had a seed time gained with Taff and although Fly can run as fast as him she was not running properly as I was running her back to another ball instead of a ragger. She has been spitting her ball out recentely (after running perfectly for 7 years!!!) so I have stopped using the ragger. She is having a bit of a strike about it and has dropped half a second off her time. Speed vs reliability??? theres a dilemma!! Needless to say we didn't do well. In fact I think we were 6th out of 7 teams, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong because I can't actually remember!! lol!! At prizegiving however Sam and Poppitt got their platinum award at last so it made it worthwhile.
We went out to celebrate it that night and went into the massive beer tent there. The bravest of us (or is that stupidest of us??) decided to go on the waltzer (or twister as some people call it), it was the fastest one that I have ever been on. Katie and I ended up cackling manically with a mixture of adrenaline and pure terror!!!! lol. At 11pm I let the Mad Mutts down and had to call it a night as I was so tired that I could barely sit up and was in danger of falling asleep at the table (That would have been a bad idea with my team members!!!) so I toddled off to bed and actually ended up taking most of the team with me as we were all tired. The rest stayed up until silly o'clock and appeared the next morning talking about cutlery and with straw in their hair?????
On Sunday the Terrierists ran really well on a submitted seed time as two of their fastest dogs were away. We put all the youngsters in and they did really well. I put Fox in the warm ups to do run backs and I was really pleased with him. He can't run up yet as his focus on the box just isn't quite there but he did brilliant runbacks with the dogs in the other lane. This is such a massive improvement from Barleylands at the beginning of the year when he did a run back in starters and jumped two sets of netting to attack the dog in the other lane!! I was over the moon with him! It's been such hard work with him that I think I will probably cry the first time he does it right in open and gets points!! LOL! The Running 4 Mutts were in Div 1. Jamie and Neo ran well even though Neo was being handled by Nicky as Tasha couldn't make the show, but we were against some of the fastest teams in the country...again we were slaughtered! We did however have the honour of running against the High Flyers when they ran the fastest time in the country ever, it cannot be called a British record however as it was not video'd!!! This was such a shame :(
The highlight of the show for me though was watching the Red Arrows who made an appearence at the show!! They were as amazing as I had always remembered them to be, thats not something that happens very often is it?
By the end of Sunday the lack of sleep had caught up with me and I was extremely tired and very pleased to be going home. I think my team were pleased I was going too as I was a little bit grumpy :)

Bad Blogger!!

Yes I know I have been really bad but in my defense I have such a busy couple of weeks!!

Had the British Flyball Champs the weekend before last. What a blast!! We didn't do particularly well but better then we expected with most of the teams.

The Fun 4 Mutts were seeded first but ended up fifth as they had nothing but problems with dogs running out. It was a shame as they were shaping up to be a good little team but Dante has been getting really tired and is the only height dog in the team. This puts a lot of pressure on her and tbh she is not up to running all day. Hopefully we will have another one up and running for next season!!

The Terrierists were fab and although seeded low in the division actually came 2nd. They have a fab new dog called Holly who has been hit and miss but thankfully got it together for the champs, this is really lucky as the terrierists were missing their fastest dog Baloo with an injured foot! Phew - good timing!!

The Mad Muttleys were last seed but pulled of a third place. Fly was running really slow and was a bit stiff. We had a fifth dog just in case but she was quite happy and wasn't in any pain so we carried on, she loosened up and got faster during the day but was never on top form, bless her! We won races with consistency and we were really pleased with this.

The Running 4 Mutts were on an incredibly fast time of 17.57 that we some how managed to get (not sure how!!) We were in completely the wrong division and just expected to annihilated 3-0. We went out with not a care in the world and came fourth! We were so pleased! We took every team to five legs so we gave them all a run for their money! Yeay!

The entertainment in the evenings was really good and 'Neon Night on Friday night was a sight to behold!

The Mad Mutts girlies ready for Neon Night!!

It took me ages to brush my hair out and it was still massive the next day. There are some pictures of me running Fly that are hilarious!! LOL!!

All in all it was a great weekend and I was sorry to come home. I left Monday morning and had three frantic days at work before going to Devon for a week. I won't bore you with details but just look at this beach that went on.........

Me and Fly

I got sent some lovely pics of Me and Fly after getting our Blue award. So I thought I'd post them on here. I'm still over the moon about it!! lol! Also found a picture of us from 2003!

Us in the olden days!! This is the original Mad 4 Mutts team

Me with my gob open as usual ha ha!!

Us with our Ice Blue Moon award

Kisses mmmmm! lol

On a totally different note, Barley chased a ball and picked it up. I was rather pleased!! :^)

Fly and her Ice Blue Moon

Fly with her bits from her Ice Blue Moon Award

Chilterns Show

I had the clever idea to go and see the new Harry Potter film (brilliant) on friday night. We went for a chinese and then went to see the film after. This resulted in me finally getting to bed at 2am as I had to quickly pack for the weekend. I then had to get up at 4.30am urgh!! I blearily drove to Katies to pick her up as she was staying with me and then we set off for the show. Made it to the show ground in just over an hour from Katie's house and quickly set the caravan up. We were in the second div on with the Muttleys and did really well although nearly every race went to five legs. We came second and achieved a cracking new seed time of 20 secs dead. This was especially good as Tyler and Lily were not being run by Dave and Kate (they are both now sacked!! :) lol). The Running 4 Mutts also got a stunning new seed time of 17.57 but ended coming seventh!! lol!! Poor Fly was so tired by the end of her racing that she could barely keep her head up to see where she was going bless her! At presentation I was awarded with Fly's Ice Blue Moon award and the team brought me a beautiful engraved glass frame with a picture of Fly in it and a bottle of rose cava (very nice). I will post some photos of her with her goodies soon. We then had a celebratory chinese (diet did not go well this weekend lol). On the sunday the Fun 4 Mutts ran but it was raining most of the day and it was very slippery. They did well and got a third (i think) but the times were not great. It was a lovely show and it was very nice to be back at a country show where there is quite a bit to do. As ever the Barkshire Bandits hosted a very slick and well run show and you would never have guessed that on saturday there was only six of them running it!!