Not to be outdone by neighbours Doncaster doing indoor grass, Rotherham came up with the fantastic idea of having “marquee” (or “big top” as it became known) flyball. 

A few disaster stories from the previous day made me a tad apprehensive about a few of our less experienced and more “spooky” dogs, but after watching the first couple of races before the Eagles were due on, it was clear where any problems might occur and our extra warm up practice paid dividends as Josh, Mollie, Bailey, Sam, Buddy & Chewy were on top, top form.  They hadn’t trained fully as a team and seeded 4 on 22.52 we knew they had potential to do well if they got into an early rhythm with changeovers.

Josh is proving much more confident going lead dog and carried on from his fine performance at Doncaster by ably leading the way here as well with Bren getting some cracking start times.  Changes were not amazing, but all the dogs were running at very close to their best and totally unfazed by the new environment.  They had a couple of close races, the best against West Riding Warriors - I jumped the netting to “Buddy run” for the 5^th leg, but it wasn’t required the Warriors got a light and the Eagles were home and dry.  They were undefeated all day and worthy winners.

The Marsh had what seemed an awesome line up with the now quicker Dylan deputising for his sister Kim borrowed by the Barneys, so although they were bottom seeds I was hoping they might rise to the challenge as their club mates had done.  I don’t think anyone would be too offended by me saying that they didn’t, the morning session was awful, none of the dogs bar Skye were running anywhere near what they can do and there were very some disappointing times – over 2 seconds slower than the seed time!  The afternoon brought better fortune and times improved slightly and they won both races to eventually finish 5^th.

I had deliberated long and hard about who should deputise in the Barneys for Norah with Andrea away on holiday.  I wanted to keep the other teams strong as even if we had had Norah, the Barneys had no chance against 3 sub 18 teams in Div 1 .  Eventually I had settled on Kim – she’s done it before in the past, could go lead dog leaving the other 3 in situ for some practise and although her running all day is something we try to avoid these days especially bearing in mind the extra runs a lead dog can get, realistically we didn’t really think we would be running more than 3 legs a race!

What got into Kim, Jet, Floss, George I don’t know, but they certainly had no intention of lying down and making it easy for the opposition and as for not many runs for Kim, Leanne and the opposition were going for the world record on false starts between them. They unbelievably won all 3 morning races – we had such a fab time, it was great.  We were brought down to earth with a bump in the afternoon facing Live Wires and Hilltop, but we went into both races good heartedly we knew the writing was on the wall and despite taking a leg off Live Wires (we scared them into a light lol!) we were clinically finished off by both superb teams.  However, despite missing Norah we still equalled our seed place (I think we were actually in a 2 way tie for 3^rd lol) so we were well pleased.

It was a great day all round and it was lovely that everyone stayed around for our batch of awards Jet – Advanced, Floss – Graduate, Bailey – Intermediate, Skye – Flyball Dog and last but not least George – Ice Blue Moon.  A huge thanks from myself and the old silver fox to the great people that make up this club for all our surprise gifts celebrating his achievement.  We don’t do many tournaments compared to a lot of top clubs so it’s taken a while, but “grandad” Owler (yet another pseudonym he gained during the weekend!) deserves it for his anchor dog service and despite his back and hip overhaul after the presentations, judging by the days’ performance I think there’s life in the old dog yet, so much so I’m very selfishly making him Dog of the Day!