We Caught the Flyball Bug...

Back in January we announced our official start of flyball training.  At that time, our intentions for enrolling Athena in a flyball class were to try out a dog sport, expose Athena to a new experience, and have some fun!  Although flyball is a competitive dog sport, we really weren't planning on competing in the future.  Our reasons for not wanting to compete were simple.  We just didn't think that Athena would be able to handle it.  Yes, she might enjoy flyball practice and get some great experience working around other dogs, but we just didn't think that in the long-run she'd be able to compete on a dog team.

As we mentioned when we first started flyball training, Athena is a social butterfly and therefore she started off thinking that flyball practice was social hour.  Our very first time that we attempted passing another dog, Athena ran after the dog to play instead of running to tug with me.

Athena successfully passing another dog

Well, little did we know that we would enjoy flyball so much and that we might get sucked into sticking with it.  If you follow us on Facebook you may have already seen this announcement...but...

Athena is now an official member of the Flying Underdogs Flyball Club!

Athena has come a really long way in her flyball training and we couldn't be more proud of her.  Her overall confidence has exploded, she's more calm in the presence of other dogs, and she just seems like a more well-trained dog overall.

Athena's ball obsession got the best of her for the first few months of flyball training and we really struggled to get her to actually drop her ball to even tug with us.  Over the past few weeks she's been making lots of improvement with dropping her ball, and last week we were faced with a new problem.  Now Athena is dropping her ball four jumps too soon!  Goodness.  Now we are working to teach her a 'give' command so that she will actually bring the ball to us, drop it, and then tug.

Jumping on the box for her ball

Joining a flyball team means that in the coming months we will be traveling to a few different flyball events.  Our first tournament where Athena will participate as a green dog (a.k.a. new dog still in training) will be held on July 13th and 14th in Salem, Oregon!

If you're curious about what flyball actually is, here's a video documentary all about the sport:

Don't forget to enter our STAM Grain-Free Treats Giveaway.  A winner will be chosen tonight (May 29th) at 9 PST!