Anchorage, AK!

The kids made it up to Anchorage to join Glaciers and ADGW at their annual fall flyball tournament!  What an amazing site and amazing people... Its so great to meet new friends who are so excited to play flyball!  We can't wait to come back!

NAFA CanAm X

We had so much fun joining our friends at NAFA CanAm X this year.  Making the trek from SFO to IND was long, but completely worth the trip to participate in crazy flyball racing with 7 rings under one roof!  What an amazing venue!

Camden enjoyed racing with her siblings on Friday on the PSF Perfect Pairings team, taking first place in Open 3.  She sat out on Saturday to rest while Cooper raced with Pups on the Multi team, taking first in Multi 19 on Saturday.  On Sunday both Camden and Cooper joined Pups to help bring the team to Finals, taking home 2nd place in Regular 8 on Pacific Pups Surfs Up and 1st place in Multi 3 with Pacific Pups Mavericks.

Getting to see amazing racing in championships by the top teams was incredible and is something we always enjoy supporting.  While we will never get to that level, its always great to watch and learn about handling, dog turns, passing, warmups and seeing different training techniques in the rings. 

We are so excited about CanAm XI next year!

RF Revolution Tournament - Truckee, CA

Through the heat and the altitude, Cooper and Camden ran with the Pups team, bringing in 1st Place both days for the Multi 1 Team and 1st and 2nd Place for the Open 2 Team.  Supporting the multiple new dogs each day, both did their jobs and came home Sunday night tired and exhausted...

Ruff Tournament in Denver, CO

Cooper and I packed up and got on another 3 hour flight from San Francisco to Denver for a fun weekend of racing with X Flyball and our new friends.... Cooper did a great job holding his turn and working hard to jump 8".  We didn't get alot of sleep, but what a fun time meeting all our friends from CanAm last year again and seeing some awesome racing by teams around the Denver area....

K9 Outlaws Tournamnet in Scottsdale, AZ

Fun weekend with our Region 6 friends in AZ!  We took a small team to Westworld in Scottsdale and ran 2 open dogs on Crazy Train's Open team.  Great fun was had by everyone and fun times checking out the vendors and the Dock Jumping pool... Cooper and Camden did not partake but the rest of the team did with lots of fun results...

SS Lodi Tournament

Camden and Cooper took time out to head north for Silver Streak's Spring tournament in Lodi, CA.  Great time was had by all, including 2 first place finishes for Cooper's Multi team both Saturday and Sunday and a first and second place finish for Camden's Open team.

So proud of her for doing 5/5 all day Saturday and Sunday while maintaining her turn and speed.  Next focus, increased endurance and closer passes while moving her back to give her more room heading in...

Lindsay, CA Flyball Tournament

Our second local 2018 season tournament in Lindsay, CA with the full crew... So much fun watching all the green dogs on the team step up to full time racing dog!

Our Multi team did extremely well, pulling out a PB on Saturday and then coming back Sunday morning to pull out an even faster 18.262 time.  Great job everyone!

Camden continues to impress me with her work ethic and stepping up to run well again both days!  Here's a brief clip of her in the lanes... Until we hit another local tournament in a few weeks.

Video link of Camden at Lindsay, CA - March 2018

Surf City - February 2018

What a great time we had.... Cooper and Camden started 2018 down south at the Surf City Flyball Tournament.  Cooper and team placed 1st both Saturday and Sunday in Multi 1 Division and Camden pulled out her racing card and decided to run full time without a backup.  Good job little girl!  Here's a few clips of her awesome full time racing status debut; I'm so proud of her!

Video link of Camden at Surf

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!