Tails Halloween spooktacular - Holly lodge 30/31 October 2021

Wash attended Tails' first indoor event at Holly Lodge this weekend travelling daily as we were close to home.

Saturday Tina, Julia and Claire joined other friends teams for the day and although the weather started out wet and windy it cleared during the day. Tina/Millie and Claire/Stan joined Fire Dragons to run and practice with the dogs in the potential crufts team. They had a good day trying a number of line ups but there is still work to be done to solidify the team before the December qualifier.

Julia and Jack joined Purple Dynamics at the last moment, as they were unexpectedly short of a dog and we had a great day. Warned by Wendy that they had no hope in the division as they were outclassed by faster teams we went out to have fun and gain points for the dogs. Jack was running 3rd into little Hagrid who he took a fancy to (no surprise there with his 'little dog' syndrome) so Julia had warned Wendy of this and that it could be likely he would just turn to chase Hagrid back! However, as usual, Jack surprised us all and was his normal excited, barky self all day and kept his times to 5.5's - 5.9's all day. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and it seems he has found himself a team if he every gets thrown out of Wash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No idea how many points he gained and the team did come last in the div but we all had fun and Jack has gained new admirers!!

We also had some visitors on Saturday with Helen, Erica and Gary coming over for a short visit, it was nice to see you guys.

Sunday saw us back with the main league team consisting of Tina and Millie, Claire and Zarah, Charly run by Talitha, Julia and Jack, Jemma and Bonnie. We were supported by Ash who boxloaded all day, Josh helping Ash and ball collecting, Sue who took our times and kept us in line with when we needed to get into the ring. Vicki helped us on the line all day too and we thank everyone for the massive support you gave us during the day. We had visitors too during the day, Jemma's parents came to watch flyball during the morning for the first time to see what it was all about and seemed to really enjoy themselves. Helen also came along again for a spell and bought the dogs some extra cocktail sausages!!

The day started dark (as the clocks had changed), wet and very windy but we were all there in good time and although Wash Warriors were not in until race 19 we were ring party for races 1-10. Julia and Tina went on lights with help from Claire and Jemma, while Sue took up box judging with Ash. Luckily, it seems we avoided the worst of the rain during this time although it also poured down during our first race with Wash after that it cleared up for the day.

We were in a 3 team div with Bristol Ballistic Bomers and Southern Striders Bounce It and on paper we were the slowest team and the div break out was 18.5 secs so all things considered we were out to race the dogs and gain points again (especially for Jack who is closing in on his pilots officer award.

The first race against Bristol we ran Millie, Bonnie, Jack and Charly and although we lost the first heat we took the next 4, surprising us all. Jack was on fire again and kept all his times well under 6secs, even beating Charly once! After a reasonable rest we were out again, this time against Striders. We got to 2 heats all losing out on the last leg but were happy we had won 2. After a long break and another stint of ring party we raced against Bristol again managing a 2 all draw. The last race against Striders loomed and we felt that after the wins we had managed to get we had a chance of 2nd in the div so needed to use some tactics! Jack had run brilliantly all day, however using logic Bonnieis faster than him so Tina decided to run Millie, Zarah, Bonnie and Charly. We lost the first heat but took the next one with our fastest time of the day at 19.93 sec (back in the sub 20's). We won the next heat with interference from a Striders dog chasing a ball, the first time Zarah was interfered with and we were really proud of her as she took no notice at all and in a rerun never faltered. We also just managed to take the last heat winning this race by 3 to 1.

So after a full day we had no idea how we had done so in presentation we were totally staggered to come away with 1st place in the div with the div fastest time as well. AMAZING and WELL DONE to both dogs and handlers. We now feel we are back in the competitive place we were before Covid hit and are incredibly proud of our club members and dogs. Perhaps we are not totally as quick as we have been previously but looking at the time sheets we have space both on starts and crosses so watch this space.

We are now looking forward to the end of the week and our outing to Errol to race over the border.....