FlyBall!

I’ve never personally seen a flyball tournament but it looks like a lot of fun. If you’re not familiar with the sport, it involves a dog running down a run which includes jumps (similar to hurdles). When the dog gets to the end of the course, he hits a trigger on the box, which launches a tennis ball. The dog must retrieve the ball and return over the jumps. When the first dog crosses the start/finish line, the next dog in the relay repeats the action, until all four dogs on the team have run.

Which dogs can compete?

Flyball is a non-discriminatory sport, meaning that it is not one of those snooty sports open only to purebreds! Any dog who loves to run and fetch tennis balls is welcome to join. However, dogs shorter than 12 inches at the withers may have a hard time, as the minimum jump height is 7 inches. A small Chihuahua might not even be able to clear the first hurdle.

The North American Flyball Association (NAFA) sanctions tournaments where dogs are divided into ability divisions. Teams of roughly equal ability compete against each other and can win titles based on the speed with which the team completes the course. The world record as of this writing is 15.22 seconds for all four dogs to complete the course.

A short history of flyball

A group of dog trainers in Southern California got together in the late 1960’s to create a sport that involved hurdle racing based on scent discrimination. As the dogs completed the race, they were rewarded with a tennis ball thrown by someone at the end of the course. Herbert Wagner then got the idea that it would be a whole lot easier if he could create a machine that would launch the tennis balls automatically, and the sport kind of morphed into what we now know as flyball.

The initial demonstrations were held in Toronto and Detroit, usually as part of existing dog shows, but when Wagner appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the sport exploded in popularity. The first tournament was held in 1983, NAFA was formed in 1984, and the first rulebook was written in 1985. (I guess before that, they just made it up as they went along!)

At first, the races were started by someone saying “on your mark, get set, go” and were timed by someone with a stopwatch. Making sure one dog crossed the start/finish line before the next dog started was accomplished simply by the judge watching.

Now, there is an Electronic Judging System that uses lights and infrared sensors to make sure all is copasetic, and times can be tracked to the thousandths of a second.

How can I get my dog started?

The North American Flyball Association sanctions over 350 tournaments a year in North America, so the best way to start out is probably to observe one near you. Check out the NAFA website for locations and fees.

The Association is divided into 22 regions, each covering a portion of the United States or Canada. You can use this handy flyball team locator to search for a group near you.

How is a flyball course set up?

If there isn’t a course near you, or if you want to practice at home, it’s not too difficult to set up a course. I think most dogs would have fun doing this just as a game, without the competition element.

An official course consists of two racing lanes, set side-by-side. The total required area for a flyball ring is at least 30′ x 90′. The center line of one lane must be between 12 and 17 feet from the adjacent lane.

Indoors or on hard surfaces, the lanes must be matted from the center lines to a width of 4.5 feet on each side (9 feet total per lane) to prevent injury.

This picture from the NAFA website (courtesy Bob Larkin)shows a typical jump.  The jumps are simply two uprights with slots in the middle where a plywood board is set at the proper height.  The heights of the jumps are set up according to the size of the smallest dog on the team. The dog is measured from the floor to the highest point on his or her back (known as the withers). This measurement is rounded down to the next whole number, then 5″ is subtracted from that number to get the jump height. All dogs must jump somewhere in the range of 7″ to 14″.

The jumps are set up at ten foot intervals down the course, with the first jump six feet from the start/finish line and the last jump 15 feet from the box.

There are many different styles of flyball box, but here is a picture of one just after being triggered by Arro of the RPM team, also from the NAFA website and courtesy of Bob Larkin.

Both pictures, as well as many others, are available as downloads for your computer screen’s wallpaper background.

Behind the box, there is a minimum of 5 feet to the backstop. Behind the start/finish line is an area of at least 29 feet in length where the dogs in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th spots on the relay wait for their turns.

Here’s how the completed course should look:

Now, you should be all set! Build a team, design a practice course, and jump into the exciting world of flyball!