
About the Sport of Flyball
and the North American Flyball Association
all photos on
this page by
Swift-Bennett
Photography
Long Island Road Rage is a new flyball
team, we just started racing in June of 2006. The pictures on this page
are of some of the original dog members of the team, Kane the Kelpie,
Mysti the mix, Riki the Papillon, Keeper the Sheltie, Becky the GSD and
Ella the Aussie. We train at Doggie U and there is a class for beginner
flyball dogs on Thursday night at 7pm. See Doggie U
schedule page for info on the class it is a drop in class, come when
you can!
Watch a video on
YouTube of LIRR doing flyball in March 2007
Flyball is a team sport
for dogs that was invented in California in the late 70's. Herbert
Wagner first showed it on the Johnny Carson Show to millions of
Americans. Soon afterwards dog trainers and dog clubs were making and
using Flyball Boxes. In the early 80's the sport became so popular that
the North American Flyball Association
(NAFA) was formed and they are the worldwide authority for Flyball.
Flyball is a relay
race with 4 dogs on a team. The course consists of a starting
line, 4 hurdles spaced 10 feet apart and a box. The first hurdle is
6 feet from the start line and the
box is 15 feet from the last hurdle for a 51 foot overall length.
The dogs jump the hurdles and steps on a spring loared box that
shoots out a tennis ball. The dog catches the tennis ball and then
runs back over the 4 hurdles. When the dog crosses the starting line
the next dog goes. The first team to have all 4 dogs run without
errors wins the heat. Tournaments are usually organized in either a
double elimination or round robin format. Double elimination is
usually best of 3 or best of 5. Round robin is usually best 3 out of
5 and the first team to win 3 heats receives 1 point towards their
standing in the tournament.

The hurdles' height are
dependent on the height of the dogs in the team -- 4" below the shoulder
height of the shortest dog. 7" is the minimum height and 14" is the
maximum height.
NAFA Jump Height
proposal results
For the change: 93.54%
|
Against the change: 6.46%
80.60% of the ballots were
returned.
Beginning October 1st, 2008, we will be subtracting FIVE inches from the
height at the withers instead of four.
The fastest times are
15.22 (Regular) & 15.43 (Multibreed) seconds by SpringLoaded from
Michigan, USA..


Click here to go to the
NAFA website
For even more info on
Flyball see the Flyball dogs page |