Christmas – 2012
An early Christmas party had the Barn Stormers gathered together at the Fairgrounds on Nov. 24 for an evening of good times and laughs. Tara and Colleen did a great job of decorating the room to make it very cozy and welcoming. We had a good turnout, with only three members unable to join us; we were all delighted to see Jackie and Rohn there as well, with a hint that they might be back in the spring. It never fails but there is a huge variety of good appys and desserts, far too many to sample all, although some of us tried. Anne once again made a flyball cake for us… talented lady!
After a time of mingling and visiting, hitting the food tables, and more mingling, eager Stormers put those chairs into a big circle for the more business end of the evening.. the awards and the Secret Santa. Thought only kids got excited at Christmas! ! The Team Spirit award went to a well deserved Stacey, the Most Improved Dog to Atticus and Ally made a super presentation of the Laughing Dog award to Tara. Tony and Ally ran the Secret Santa which was a big success – some of those gifts travelled back and forth across the room the maximum allowable number of times! Watching people calculate when to steal in order to wind up with some coveted gift was good fun. The unwrapping when all the gifts were chosen was enlightening…. never knew there were so many ways to disquise a bottle of wine!!!
Cleanup and undecorating went quickly with everyone pitching in to help… thank you all. As people left, they found their dog’s stocking on the Dog Tree to take home to the furry members of our club so while they were left home, they weren’t forgotten; after all, they’re the reason we are together. Flyball rocks!
The "Dog Tree"
a delicious Flyball cake by Anne
some of the gang
and some more!
Cascade Comets South of the Border Tournament
October 20 – 21, 2012
This time it was Buffy and Ruffy who joined Seeker and Chianna at a tournament in Auburn, Washington. The gallant little foursome ignored the cold in the barn and rain on their cool downs and pre race walks to show that these Canadian dogs have what it takes to pull off a second place finish in Division Two on the Saturday. Unfortunately, on Sunday, the Feared Flyball FFFantoms struck with a vengance; a sprained ankle in the first heat of the first race (thanks, Jeff of Jet City, for running Ruffy that race), false starts, early passes, runamuck Ruffy, and dropped balls all plagued us throughout the day. Despite all this, we did survive and placed fourth of five teams, so it wasn’t all bad!
The weather was such that our potluck supper on Saturday night saw the team cozily together around the table in Aaron & Laura’s motorhome, sharing some good laughs and stories. As always, the social aspects of the weekend help to make it all worthwhile; we must have fun, ’cause we keep doing it!
Coats were needed in camp
Tony found other jobs to do as well as box loading
Tournament of Champions and A-Maize-ing Dog Days
August 24 – 26, Kearney, Nebraska
2700 km one way to get to a flyball tournament. (Did someone say flyballers are crazy?) But that’s what Dancer and Ruffy, accompanied by their pals, Chianna and Seeker, did in August.
On the Friday, the “boys” claimed their Singles Racer titles early in the day – that’s 10 different weekends of racing completed; it’s taken awhile, but they did it. Unfortunately, Ruffy then injured a toe and had to be pulled for the rest of the day, following the “better safe than sorry” rule, as he was needed fit for the rest of the weekend. This resulted in their Pairs placement being Sixth; however, Dancer continued on in his Singles Division and placed First – well done, Dancer and Kathi. And it also needs to be told that they had a perfect start!
As the Barn Stormers original qualifying team was not able to attend the Championship, our little group was entered in Standard, in Division 4. Both Saturday and Sunday saw some close, well run races, with final placement not being decided until the last heat of the last race both days – a satisfactory Third on Saturday, and a well deserved First on Sunday!! Our little four dog team did us proud – good dogs. The handlers, the box loader and the ball catcher need to be congratulated as well. “We done good!”
A long trip, a hot trip, but all in all, a fun trip…. and that’s what it’s all about.
The team - Tony, Aaron, Laura, Kathi, Marg and Lorraine
48 teams were entered in the tournament
Two rings with lots of action
Sunday's accomplishment
And cleanup at the end of the weekend
Matsqui’s Country Fest Tournament
July 28 – 29, Maple Ridge
Ruff and Dancer joined up with Maximum Overdrive and Pawcific Storm and panted their way through a weekend of bright sunshine at the Maple Ridge Country Fest tournament. Temperatures hovered around 25C both days and the shade tents and kiddy pools for the dogs were much appreciated. As was the shaved ice vendor at the Fair! It was a “bare bones” tourney so all that was brought home were dog points and sunburns, but everyone had a great time as usual. We did see a very unusual sight on Sunday. In fact, no one could remember seeing it before. False start, same heat, both teams at the same time ….. -0.001. What a way to tie! Way to go, Mark. Thanks to Julia for the pictures.
And it needs to be mentioned, that not only did Ruffy behave himself, he crossed the 30,000 point mark… FGDCh… Flyball Grand Champion.
The Stormrunners team on the line
Unbelievable if we hadn't all seen it!
Dogwood Pacesetters’ Summer Fun Tournament
June 2 and 3, 2012…… Cloverdale
Ruff, Buffy and Dancer joined with Seeker and Chianna from Pawcific Storm and trekked over to Cloverdale for some fun in the ring over the June 2-3 weekend. All the dogs earned a good number of points towards their next titles, running clean and very close to their seed time in the majority of their heats. Seeker, whose motto is “Will run for treats!”, probably had the most fun – 5 different handlers over the course of the tournament. His smile when he discovered each handler would trade a treat for the ball was contagious. Once again, Ruffy made Marg proud as he ignored temptation all weekend long … no going back to the box for another ball. Good boy!
With not many dogs, the 'camp' was small
When Sunday came, Dancer was ready to head for home and was prepared to drive to get there!
Matsqui 21st Annual Spring Flyball Tournament
Abbotsford… May 5th and 6th, 2012
Once again, the “boys”, Dancer and Ruffy, joined their friends, Max, Chianna and Seeker of Pawcific Storm in Abbotsford to run in Division 3. Seeded 5th of 7 teams, the gang recorded good times and earned lots of dog points both Saturday and Sunday. Team members helped out other teams by box loading, running dogs, calling passes and ball shagging, and we in turn, were helped by others – typical flyball cooperation.
A very special event was celebrated on Sunday, as Chianna, handled by Aaron, reached 70,000 points. Word had gotten out and a large crowd gathered to watch that race and applaud them. Congratulations to you both! Dancer/ Kathi and Ruffy/ Marg are proud and happy to have helped them achieve such a milestone. That’s a lot of racing!
Chianna's 70,000 point race!
Resting after a long day of racing
Maximum Overdrive Easter Flyball Tournament
April 7/8, 2012 Saanichton
Barn Stormers ventured out on a sunny April Easter weekend to a local tournament at the Saanich Fairgrounds. It was a successful and, more importantly, fun weekend.
Saturday saw the Hurricanines running in the Regional Qualifiers. Ruff, Buffy, Jonas, Lily and Dancer made a good showing, winning heats against much faster teams by simply running clean. The groups best time of the day was 18.937 seconds.
It took a little bit of practice and some embarassing goof-ups to get used to the start lights. Kathi had a personal worst start time with Dancer of 0.95 seconds. Amazing how mesmerizing yellow lights can be.
Saturday also saw some Singles racing from Buffy, Dancer, Jonas and Ruffy.
Ruff – 4.32 sec
Buffy – 4.48 sec
Jonas – 5.14 sec
Dancer – 5.17 sec
Sunday saw the Sopwith Mutts come out to play. Buffy, Jonas, Lily, Cali, Jackson and Annie placed 1st in their division, thanks to many many clean runs. Their best time of the day was 21.57 seconds.
Ruff and Dancer joined up with their friends with Maximum Overdrive and Pawcific Storm to make up a pickup team. The green dogs on that team did a great job while our seasoned dogs acted as anchors.
Everyone was so delighted and proud of Zeke for conquering his aversion to all the noise and excitement around the ring and running a respectable 6.07 seconds in Singles racing.
There was a lot of good natured trash-talking and teasing abounded when the team of Buffy/Jonas faced off against Ruff/Dancer team. Luckily they split the 4 heats – 2 wins/2 losses each.
Buffy/Jonas – 9.28 seconds
Ruff/Dancer – 9.54 seconds
Also on Sunday, Marg had two perfect starts, Ally had one. That is very impressive on an unfamiliar set of lights. Good job ladies.
Finally, congratulations all around to the new titles earned.
Lily – Top Flight, Top Flight-I
Annie – Top Flight-I
Jackson – Top Flight-III
Buffy – Top Flight Executive
The Barn Stormers teams
Qualifier award for the Hurrycanines
Kings March Madness 2012
Cloverdale – March 24 – 25, 2012
The first trip in 2012 saw Dancer and Ruff once again joining forces with their Pawcific Storm buddies to make up two small teams; Fireball Shooters consisted of Dancer, Holly, Max, Seeker and Nyx, and the Storm Runners had Ruff, Griz, Rig and Chianna. This meant lots of running for everyone so not surprising that by Sunday night, all were tired.Saturday was an exceptionally long day – 8 races for each team for a total of 120 races in all! That’s a lot of racing. The Runners took first place in Div. 3 and the Shooters claimed second in their Div. 4.
Sunday saw fewer races in total although the Runners still had 8 and the Shooters 6; our valiant dogs kept it up all day. The Runners had their passes and starts down pretty good and raced to an impressive first place finish once again, leaving most of their competition well behind in points. A few difficulties plagued the Shooters but they hung in though and placed fourth.
The box cart, with all the equipment loaded on.
The brand new box cart got its first workout and saved our faithful boxloader Tony’s back – he rolled happily back and forth between the two rings!It was a tiring weekend after such a long break since our last tournament, but it reaffirmed why we play this crazy sport – good dogs – good people – and good fun!!
Christmas Party 2011
The Barn Stormer gang got together for the last 2011 event on December 17. We changed the venue this time, and used the Gallery Room at the fairgrounds; thanks to Colleen and Liz, the room looked very festive and welcoming for the evening. We missed some members who weren’t able to be with us, but those who were able to come had a good time; as usual, lots of food and laughs. Most of the time was spent just socializing and sharing laughs until we got to the business end….. the awards. The Laughing Dog award went to Ally… the start of a new tradition. Colleen was a well deserved recipient of the Spirit Award, and Kona received the Most Improved Dog. Box Loader Tony was recognized with a special gift – a box cart to help him move the box around at tournaments. Special thanks go to Graham who made it for us – he and Marg had scouted out others at the December tourney. The evening ended with the Secret Santa exchange…. definitely another new tradition that will endure … great fun and no violence!
As the year draws to a close, here’s a warm wish to everyone from all of us…..
Happy New Year and good racing! Flyball rocks !!!!
The "dog" tree
Christmas Classic Tournament
Abbotsford – December 3 – 4, 2011
Several Barn Stormer dogs joined their Pawcific Storm buddies and ventured over to the Christmas tournament hosted by Dogwood Pacesetters on the Dec 3-4 weekend.
Buffy and Jonas joined the Fireball Shooters team, running with Seeker, Rudy and Holly. The team placed 4th on Saturday and 3rd on Sunday. Jonas had a revelation – Buffy isn’t the only sweet female border collie out there. He was more than willing to follow Holly if the occasion called for it. Ally got a lot of practice at the start position – she and Buffy did very well, posting a personal best of a 0.018 start. Congrats to both handlers and dogs on reaching their FDCh-Silver titles (1000 pts).
Ruff joined the Stormrunners, along with Griz, Max, Ben and Chianna. The seasoned group ran to a 3rd place finish on Saturday and 2nd place on Sunday. Mark and Griz amazingly got 3 perfect starts on Saturday. Thanks are to be given to the Barn Stormer teammates for all their help at practices – Ruff NEVER ONCE ran back to the box on his own. Marg was definitely bursting with pride in him.
Dancer ran with Acceleration, including Sophie, Chaos and Cindy. This foursome has run together many, many times before, resulting in 1st place in their division both days. The axiom of “clean runs are better than speed runs” was true this weekend. The group racked up an impressive 1091 dog points each over the weekend. Pretty nice!
Everyone had a wonderful time, as usual, and are all looking forward to the holidays and resting up for the racing in 2012.
Happy Holidays to all.
The raffle table always gets lots of attention
Since it's Christmas, a tree and lots of prizes for the dogs
