Last Tournament for 2017!

We had some fun times in 2017 and Camden helped close the year with some clean runs for her first NAFA titles.  She started Saturday with some warm ups and ran 1 race on Sunday to earn her FD and FDX, respectively.  We're getting closer and closer each day to getting her ready for 2018's CanAm and we're so excited she's doing well enough to have some fun over the weekend at the Sacramento flyball tournament.

Here's to 2018!

Practice For December Tournament

Some fun with the team practicing before the big tournament in Sacramento next week... Fun pairs running, but we have alot to work on and will need to re visit the prop situation to help Camden keep her box nice and high...

Camden's First Year...

So thankful for Camden's arrival into our pack.  I've been very impressed with her dedication and commitment to her training and so proud of all the progress she made over the past year... While it was a joy to train her, we could not have gotten her this far without the larger flyball community and our flyball club and friends...

UFLI Tournament In Madera, CA

Camden and Cooper joined the Pacific Pups team in Madera, CA this past weekend to attend the Leaps of Faith UFLI Tournament.  Lots of work went into making the green dogs on the team successful and Camden pulled out some great runs at her very first flyball tournament, managing to take 3rd place on Saturday....  The team came out to help in multiple races and Cooper kept his cool as the team's height dog, running in various positions to allow for switching dogs around and earning the team's Standard 2 2nd place on Saturday and 1st place on Sunday... Great job everyone!

2017 NAFA CanAm

Cooper and I took the trek up to Indianapolis to attend NAFA’s 2017 CanAm Classic tournament.  So much thanks to our friends from Crazy Train for creating an open spot for Cooper on Saturday.  We had a fantastic time in the lanes racing against some amazing fast teams/dogs and outside the lanes watching the even more amazing faster teams/dogs.

Some observations we made during our first CanAm travels:

-- United Airlines has inconsistent training for their crew on pets and travel policies.  They didn’t want to print out Cooper’s boarding pass in SFO and didn’t even realize he was on board in IND until after I left the plane holding him when we landed back in SFO.  Lesson learned here?  Don’t even bother to pay the pet fee.

-- Cooper can travel about 3 hours at the start of the trip before he starts to get restless.  Having bully sticks and ice helps, and the space under the seat is wider than the carrier bag so always plan to unzip one or both sides to get more room inside the pet carrier.  Cooper slept the whole way back during the 5 hours flight, mostly due to post racing exhaustion and me playing tug with him at the gate.

-- CanAm is amazing!  So many teams onsite to talk to, so much to watch and learn during racing, so many vendors to visit.  Having multiple rings helped move things along, but also means you have less time to yourself as you’re literally running from one ring to another… Wear comfortable shoes every day!

-- Racing with new team members = first few races of confusion 😊  BUT everyone gets it together in the end and our OPEN 5 team placed first at the end of the day! 

-- Having fun is paramount and keeping a good sense of humor helps to move things along.  I did witness some freak outs on other teams and clubs during the tournament, but I also don’t have a 3.0 dog and am not running on the fastest team, so pressure was not there for me to “get invited” to the Classic tournament.  I must say, though, OPEN 5 with 18.2 second teams make it a bit more competitive than our regional tournaments.

-- That being said, the Classic tournament was amazing and watching the 14 sec teams was totally inspiring!

So we made it back safely and have so many memories to revisit.  It was incredible to experience the tournament of tournaments for NAFA and Cooper getting to compete at a national level made it even more worthwhile.  Here’s to CanAm 2018 – the 10^th year anniversary!

2018 Season Starts

What a great 2016/2017 flyball season. We've learned so much and have been able to make new flyball friends over the past two years.
It's been such a great joy to meet and broaden our flyball perspective and learn about all the great things going on in the flyball community.


Looking back, we've been able to progress our flyball pack and closed some chapters for the dogs that are enjoying other relaxing activities. Cody, our first flyball labrador, earned his ONYX after a rough start to the season and sat out for a few months due to his oral surgery. BUT with the team's help and working with other clubs, he's completed his goal title and will now be retired from Flyball. Bailey remains the semi retired show labrador and will spend his time helping the club's green dogs where he can. Paceman is gaining confidence with himself and has taken on daily runs with daddy for fun. We'll bring him back into the ring once he gets a bit older and if he shows that he wants to do it...


Camden and Cooper have made huge progress this year and are working on stabilizing their efforts for competition. Camden has a nice box turn and is able to do full runs, but we're still working on getting her ready for competition and dealing with some related ball obsession issues in the run back. I'm confident we will get there...


BUT my biggest achievement this year was getting Cooper back into the ring with the proper support to achieve his goals and runs. We've worked so hard together to overcome the bad initial training he had, and as the height dog for the team, its taken a good year to get him back to a safe, proper box turn. During all this time, he gained confidence, worked on his passing, and earned his ONYX this year. Here are some pics of his progress in fixing his box turn with the help of everyone at Pacific Pups and flyball coaches from Canada and Alaska... Thanks all for your help; he would not be here without all the advice and support! It took us a good year, but we got there...

Scotts Valley Wrap Up....

Last tournament of the season for 2017 and we are so proud of Cody for finally pulling off this Flyball Onyx. He managed to only run in 1 tournament half time this season and after oral surgery, he recovered to complete his 20,000 points on Saturday. We are forever grateful of the dogs on the team helping push Cody to this goal. Fun times all around....

Surf City Tournament

We packed up the car and drove south to the Surf City TUG Summer Games right after recovering from Truckee. Back to back tournaments are always tough to gauge on the dogs, but Cooper seemed happy to be heading to an activity weekend. It was good to see everyone else and Cooper worked his butt off to help SoCal out after they had some dogs pulled at the last minute. A tough weekend for him, but he was a trooper and pulled out multiple back to backs in both rings... Camden worked ring side to solidify her recalls and did some free form retrieve work outside... Not a bad weekend overall, but they were definitely both worn out by the time we reached the hotel on Sunday night prior to driving home on Monday....

Truckee Patriot Games...

Both Cooper and Camden packed up and hit the road to a fantastic outdoor flyball tournament filled with sun, surrounded by beautiful evergreens and mountain views.  But before that, it was a long drive Friday night from the Bay Area up to Truckee for the Truckee Patriot Games...  Enjoying the 5,287 feet elevation, Camden did awesome with distraction work next to the noisy ring and getting herself settled in between heats and races with minimal barking.

Cooper worked his butt off for his team, formed early Saturday morning while Steve and I ran around asking for extra dogs, a ball shagger, and most important of all, a box loader for 8 races each day.  A special call out to Ball Haulers for providing us with an awesome box loader and Silver Streaks for Donna and Mike's help on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.  We could not have done it without you guys!

And of course, thanks to Greg and Janet from AAR and SoCal flyball for offering up extra dogs for our open team... Having never practiced or run together, we did well enough to come back home Sunday night with sufficient points... See everyone next year!

Cooper's Tug Work Continues...

Work continues to Cooper's tug drive.... https://youtu.be/JxRdyK1wfpE

In Between Tournaments...

Cooper and Camden takes a snooze after flyball practice in between tournaments... 

Box Work With Cooper

Cooper continues to work on his box.  Since his initial training, we've learned alot about what a flyball box turn should look like and how to get him motivated to move his rear up as high as possible while catching his ball...  Adding to this, we're working on his striding to make sure he singles on the way back between the 5th and 6th jump.

Its been a tough road since he didn't have a solid foundation at the beginning, but we're seeing lots of progress with the help of everyone over the past season from our team members to his new coach.  Here we are working with Aaron from Rocket Relay.

Camden Breaks The Glass Ceiling...

It's official that The Flyball Boys have opened their doors for full integration to include their first female member... PSF Mini Wildfire Vroom aka Camden had joined our team back in September and well on her way with her flyball foundational skills...  We're excited to see how far she goes...

Rockey Relay Seminar

Cooper and Camden headed to Las Vegas for a weekend of learning and fun.  We attended the Rocket Relay Flyball Seminar hosted by X Flyball with Cooper in a working spot on both Saturday and Sunday.  What a great opportunity to work the skills taught by Aaron and the RR team.

We learned so much about the flyball foundational components that were missing in Cooper's initial training and what can now be applied to Camden's foundational work.  Additionally, we were able to pick up lots of different tips and advice from everyone involved on training and competition readiness.  It was great watching everyone work their dogs with Aaron interjecting on what can be done to help bring them to the next level of flyball work.

Overall, what a great weekend and to come back with a solid foundation and understanding of what it takes to bring a puppy up to flyball readiness is priceless.  Along the way, we got some great advice on Cooper's continued work and basic exercises to help drive Camden's foundational work....