Flyball
Thank you to Rachel Brown for supplying this information
About Flyball
Flyball is a team sport. It’s fast, colourful and noisy. Dogs are not eligible to compete until they are 18 months old.
Flyball is a relay race where each team has four dogs who race against another team in another lane, over four hurdles, retrieve a tennis ball from the box at the end of the lane and then back over the four hurdles, then the next dog goes. The handlers remain behind the start line and they release their dogs in turn and collect them at the end of their run. Each team has one person whose job it is to load the box for each dog in the team; these “boxloaders” stand behind the box.
In the UK there are two types of flyball: Crufts flyball and BFA flyball (British Flyball Association).
History
Flyball started in America in the early 1970’s where Herbert Wagner first invented a ball launcher for dog obedience demonstrations. He was asked to go on national TV and the sport grew from there. In the early 1980’s the North American Flyball Association (NAFA) was formed, followed by the BFA in the early 1990’s.
Flyball has grown to be an International event with regular European Championships. There is a world rankings list for team speeds which can be found on the BFA website.
Crufts Flyball
Crufts Flyball is a one off annual knockout competition where the last team left standing wins. There are eight qualifying events throughout the country, held by dog clubs who have applied to the Kennel Club to hold the event, with the two finalist teams from each going through to the competition held at Crufts.
Crufts Flyball uses a slingshot box that throws the ball in the air when a dog presses a pedal at the front. Jumps are fixed at 12 inches and races are the best of three. Judging is done by ‘eye’, and the start dog runs from a start line on a whistle blow.
BFA Flyball
BFA flyball uses a front-loading box that the dogs can turn on. Races are
run with electronic starting, timing and fault lighting, and the jump heights
are adjusted between 8 & 14 inches depending on the smallest dog in a team.
Tournaments are held on a round robin league/division system so that every team
in a division gets to race every other team in that division.
Each team
has
a
maximum of six dogs, two of which are substitutes that can be changed in for
subsequent races, but just four dogs at a time run in each race.
BFA flyball tournaments run all year round both indoors and outdoors.They are mainly run in Divisions using seeding times to make the racing competitive. Running in these competitions gives your dog BFA points which go towards flyball titles.
BFA: http://www.flyball.org.uk/
Crufts: http://www.crufts.org.uk/ddo/