On the 14/11/2009 Honey raced with Rotherham Rockets at Mona Show Ground, in Anglesey, she had already reached 995 points from previous races since July 2009, so only needed 5 more points to gain her Intermediate Award for 1,000 points! Go Honey!

Eabha is now beginning her training to become a Flyball dog, to see more on her progress, visit http://www.rotherhamrocketsflyballteam.com/eabha.html

Ok so we had got to the point where Eabha would now pick up a ball and put it in my hand, the next stage was actually getting her to retrieve, I thought this was going to be much trickier but to my surprise she had already got the hang of the whole thing and began retrieving straight away. Once I had her fetching the ball confidently and even showing enthusiasm it was time to take it outside, for the whole of week two I spent 20 mins per day on a field with a box of treats a ball and Eabha, she would happily retrieve as long as I didn't throw the ball too far and as long as there weren't any new sounds/noises/people/dogs! Her confidence began to grow and the time came to hand her back to her owners. I was a little worried she may have to go back a few steps when doing the "routine" for someone else, but no..she was a little star and looked much happier than she ever did with me! 
Well done Eabha Diva, fingers crossed you'll be flyballing this time next year!

Ok, so for four days we had done the; "you touch the ball with your nose, you get a treat" and Eabha was rapidly growing in confidence with it! I could now put the ball on the floor, roll it and she'd follow, even use it as a lure.  Just to make doubly sure she had really got the idea and to show her that balls could be fun, I took her to a nearby field and threw the ball, I had to run with her, as again her confidence was holding her back, BUT she did it and looked happy doing it! So we both chased the ball for 10 minutes or so, Eabha consistently touching it with her nose, it was time to take the next step!
When freeshaping, (which is what I have been doing so far) you dont ask the dog to do anything, but they only get the reward when they offer certain behaviours, such as touching a ball, when you want them to offer something slightly better such as pawing at it or even picking it up, you STOP clicking/saying "yes" confident dogs will often get a litttle annoyed at the fact that they have done what has gotten them the treat so far and it isn't working! So they give you NEW behaviours. The problem I had with Eabha was that she had "low self esteem" so if I stopped rewarding her all the training I had done could easily be lost, so I decided to do something quite risky... I physically (but very gently) put the ball in her mouth, the risk was that she may find such an action too invasive and could easily freak her out, I must have done it ten times, then RESULT she did it herself! I cannot tell you how relieved I was! I knew Eabha didn't have the confidence to try something new herself, so physically showing her what I wanted was the right choice! PHEW! So for the next couple of day I simply held the ball in my hand, she would pick it up and get her "yes" and reward!

Day one did NOT look promising, my original plan was to clicker train her, just as I did with Honey and Kane (they also had no interest in balls). Initially she wasn't even interested in the treats, but i put that down to her nerves and persisted, we did 5 training sessions on the first day, the longest probably being 3 minutes and I felt like I had achieved very little, she was taking the treats but I could tell it just wasn't "clicking" in her head! Oh dear!
Day two was MUCH more positive! I ditched the clicker, as she seemed quite sensitive to it and used the word "yes" instead.... NOW she was starting to get it! I held the ball in front of her, she touched it, then looked at me for her treat... RESULT! Again we did 4/5 training sessions, each lasting no longer than 4 minutes, by the end of the day she was standing on her back legs to touch the ball, rolling it across the floor with her nose and following it around the room. 
In the evening I even watched her playing tuggy (albeit it with Darryl's sock!) with Jasmine, this was another break through as she is very reluctant to play with anything with other people/dogs present!
Cue big sigh of relief from me! It still is far from a n overnight thing, but I'm certain she will make slow but steady progress and we can reach our end goal!

Stocksbridge Tournament. Kane was added as a 6th dog on our first team, in order to let him have a go at doing some run backs and some team runs, previously he had developed a nasty habit of running out or saying hello to the boxloader! He went perfectly, straight there and back and over full height for the first time and didn't bat an eye lid! He was soon put in for his "open debut" and ran just fine, but the times weren't fast enough so it was back to the original team dogs. Later for the afternoons racing...disaster struck! One of our team members had been called away on a family emergency and Kane was quite literally thrown into the deep end! Well what a star he was, he did FANTASTICALLY! The team ended up in first place but there was a three way tie, so it went to the team with the fastest time and Kane's team ended up third. We were all delighted with his performance and hopefully this will be the beginning of lots more to come! Kane gained 115 points!
We also ended up with a new temporary house guest, Eabha (pronounced Eva), Andy and Sam's Border Collie. Eabha is a VERY fast little dog and would make an EXCELLENT Flyball dog, one slight problem though....she has NO interest in balls whatsoever! So I now have the mission of teaching her to not only like balls but to retrieve them, she is also extremely timid, so I really will have my work cut out over the next two weeks!....Watch this space!

In the sport of Flyball dogs can gain points and are given awards when they reach certain milestones.
The points are gained by running in a team of dogs which successfully completes a race, so if they run under 22 seconds every dog on that team is allocated 25 points, under 26 seconds, gives them 10 points and under 30 seconds gives them 5 points.
The Awards are as follows;

Flyball Dog Award 200 points
Flyball Dog Intermediate 1000 points
Flyball Dog Graduate 3000 points
Fyball Dog Advanced 5000 points
Silver 10,000 points
Gold 15,000 points
Ice Blue Moon 20,000 points
Platinum 25,000 points
Pearl 30,000 points
Jade 35,000 points
Chica Chicana 40,000 points
Sapphire 50,000 points
Diamond 60,000 points
Opal 70,000 points
Topaz 80,000 points

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