CanAm 2010

My teammate on Jet City Jumpers Flyball team (Joy) and I drove all the way from Seattle to Indiana for Flyball nationals. We brought my two border collies and two of her border collies. It was quite chaotic with just Joy and I taking care of 4 border collies and of course my daughter Finley had to come along too.

We decided to switch Indigo and Ezri onto my favorite east coast team, Canine Mutiny. We tried to put together the fastest team possible with our two girls along with two of their border jacks, Stingray and Slingshot.

We had quite a disadvantage with no possibly for a team practice. Also Indigo has not been her usual speedy self for the past year and Slingshot was still not recovered from an earlier injury. We managed to pull it together enough to run a 16.3 and entered the finals. It was a single elimination and we were eliminated on the first round against Burnin Rubber. We didnt have much of a chance against them with their 2 border whippets, whippet, and border stack.

I was very impressed with our open team. We all ran very well together and got some great times. On Sunday we put Indigo, Epic, Ezri (our three JCJ border collies) on a team with Stingray and ran a 16.1 with a .16 start. We were very excited to have won Open Division 1 that day.

Overall it was one of the best flyball experiences I have ever had. It was amazing to watch the top teams compete for the championship.

Stingray!

We stopped to visit Ezri and Indigos breeder on the way. L --> R Indigo, Ezri, Prancer, Brita, Dazzle

Our accomodations at CanAm

Our crating area

TV screen for listing upcoming races

Proof that we made it to the finals!

the crowd watching the final races

interesting prop used by NET

A family photo of Race (from Orion Border Collies) kids. L --> R Ezri, Indigo, Razor, Speed, Drive



CanAm 2011 has been announced and will be at the same place and same time. Unfortunately we probably wont be able to make it next year. We are hoping to be able to compete in UFLI nationals next year depending on where it is held.

can-am

yet another blog

I decided to separate my dog training ideas, thoughts and reports into a new blog to keep it all separate from my day to day report on our life. I named the blog after my border collie Indigo, my best girl and the one that taught us all about the world of dog sports.

We currently have 3 dogs, 2 border collies and a baby whippet. We started out, as most people do with a mix breed dog that could learn dog sports, but wasnt especially good or driven to be trained. Of course we figured if we were going to get another dog, it might as well be a border collie. Indigo was a joy to train in flyball and now is doing great for Ben in agility, but we needed another dog for Ben to run in flyball and for herding. We tried Indigo in herding, but she turned out to prefer running full speed at the sheep and injuring herself and them too many times. She is a true sport dog and not a stock dog.

That is where Epic came into the picture. We got him as a partially trained herding dog with the hope of entering him into herding trials some day. He was trained for flyball in 3 months and is running for Ben in tournaments.

When you get involved in dog sports, getting more and more dogs becomes part of the addiction. We had two wonderful dogs that are successful in their sports, but that is not enough! After considering several other breeds/mixes (borderjack, borderstaffy, another border collie, staffordshire bull terrier and JRT) we decided that our next dog would be a whippet.

I started looking a kennels with the plan to get one in the next year or so, but a very cute little red whippet was available right away. We tried him out in our house and immediately decided to keep him. Pax is now 6 months old and is in training for agility, flyball and hopefully will try whippet racing and lure coursing.

Deltabluez Epic

Ignited Indigo

Pax