RALLY MAKES FULL RUN

After many months of hard work Rally is now starting to get the hang of flyball and he is liking it. The Video below is part of his 1st full run at a demo on 10/18/2008 in La Quinta. It was very exciting to see him make this progress.

Friday Night Practice

At practice last night Rally did great, he had 4 box hits in a row where he got his ball cleanly each time and ran back to me to get his tug toy.

Rally is starting to get it

Last Monday night at practice Rally showed signs that he is starting to get what flyball is all about. He started to consistently run back and drop his ball for the tug toy. Getting the bait bag tug toy seems to have been the trick.

He is still having some problems with his Eye to Mount Coordination getting the ball out of the box cleanly but that will just take a bit of time and practice so I am hoping that pretty soon we will be adding a jump so he will have to go over one jump, get his ball and run back over the jump to get his tug toy.

Rally gets his ball from the box :)

I wish I had my camera last night. After a lot of hard work Rally went up to the box, hit it with all 4 feet on the box and grabbed his ball. Then, he turned and ran back to me for his prize :)

The Flyball Adventure Begins

Rally is now almost 16 months old and we have been training him to compete in Flyball with his sister Savvy who has been racing on the Woof Gang Team since November 2007.

Rally's training is much slower that Savvy's training was. He is making progress but just as we think we are getting somewhere he seems to have forgotten everything we have taught him. This has been a real challenge for his mother and me but we are hanging in there because we know that when he finally learns flyball he will love it and he will be awesome at it because he is very fast and love to please.

Currently we have trained Rally to have a wonderful box turn, he is getting better all the time with his tug games and just love when the tug comes out to play, his hurdles are doing well, he has good speed but he is not yet consistent with the jumps and sometimes thinks he can just go around them.

We are still not giving him any tennis balls because once a ball comes out he forgets everything else and all he wants to do is get the ball and go lie down somewhere with it. This is our big challenge, to get Rally to know that the ball is nothing more than a way to earn play with the tug, the problem is that the ball seems more valuable to him than the tug does.

We will keep working on this and once we decide how to proceed I will post his progress her for everyone to read about.

In the Beginning

On July 21, 2007 we lost our beloved Border Collie Mix Dodger, after many years of dealing with his seizures, the epilepsy finally got the better of him.

Left with one dog, 1 1/2 year old Savvy, we decided to search for another dog to help keep us and Savvy company.

On Sunday July 22, 2007 we meet Rally formally named Wrigley for the 1st time at the daycare center in Manhattan Beach where Rover Rescue was having him fostered. He was rescued from the Carson Shelter and spent the the first three weeks at Airport Animal Hospital in Westchester and then he was then moved to the daycare center. Rally's birthday has been estimated to be March 17, 2007 (St. Patrick's Day) and we believe he is a Border Collie Mix.