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...