The bowling of dog sports

Gabby and I play a dog sport called Flyball. It's a team-relay sport with 4 dogs. The first dog runs over a start line, jumps over four hurdles, jumps on a box that spits out ball, the dog catches the ball, turns around, runs back over the 4 hurdles, and over the finish line. The next dog does the same thing and the next dog and the next dog. You race against another team of 4 dogs and the first team to have all 4 dogs complete the relay properly wins.

This is a very noisy and crazy sport. It's perfect for a noisy and crazy dog.

I actually got Gabby because I was interested in flyball. Once I adopted her, I was offered free flyball classes from the woman that ran the rescue. There was one problem - Gabby lost her mind at the sight of any other dog. Considering that she would be on a team with 3 other dogs and competing against 4 other dogs, this is not good. Gabby was never really aggressive, though she did get in fights. But I'd probably start something with someone that came running up to me at top speed screaming at the top of their lungs. I could never blame any dog for want to shut Gabby up.

When we first started classes, I would be the only student. I actually showed up after the open practice that the woman teaching us had. Gabby was a very quick study and had no problems learning a proper box turn or how to return to me. She just would completely lose all resemblence of sanity if another dog appeared. She would bark non-stop and caused herself to foam at the mouth. She could be distracted by nothing. Treats, no matter how smelly and tempting, where no match for barking mercilessly at another dog.

Then came the spray bottle.

I was taking her to obedience class at the same time we started Flyball. I'd talked to the obedience trainer before beginning class and told her the problem. She recommended a head halter. When it was on, Gabby could think of nothing else other than getting it off unless, of course, there was another dog around. Then the barking, and pulling, and foaming started.

This is how we entered our first obedience class. Gabby jumps out of the car and sees a dog in the parking lot. She begins her lunatic barking. I struggle to put her head halter on during this episode and managed to put my hand in her mouth during a bark and get bit. After recovering from that, I get the head halter on backwards. While trying to fix it, another dog shows up. At this point I want to cry and go home defeated. But I figured this wasn't over until I was kicked out of obedience class, which I was 100% certain would happen. At that point I'd be totally justified in giving up on this dog. So I walk in with the lunatic pulling and barking as best she could in a head halter. The trainer walks over to us and I'm certain that I'm being asked to exit. Instead, she pulls out a spray bottle, and squirts Gabby while saying "NO!" It worked... Like it seriously worked... I sat there stunned.

I was allowed to attend the open flyball practice with the other dogs after that.

I love spray bottles.