For the third wet weekend in the Northumberland Hills in a row, one had to delay on Spring Lawn and Gardening work. Fortunately, the Belleville Hot Diggity Dog Club was having its Flyball competitions under a spacious and rain-protected arena. So it was off to Frankford to catch the May 3 2014 Hot Diggity Dog Fun Match. And fun is indeed the appropriate words as seen below:
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Yes this is early in the Flyball season, and just like Major league Baseball pitchers it takes a few weeks of extra training to get the Flyball dogs into their “groove”. But as the day wore on the dogs got better and better and better:
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But what was even more surprising was the range of dogs participating in the Flyball racing. Of course one would expect the fast dogs like whippets, greyhounds and even beagles. True to form, there were a few to be found; but not nearly as many as there were border collies which proved to be very fast indeed.
Even more intriguing was the range in size from big labradors, greyhounds and poodles to mid-size beagles and huskeys down to miniature schnauzers and lots of pint-sized terriers. Even more fascinating was the amount of training and exercise the dog owners got. This is not a release and watch activity as the owners ran with, tugged on and otherwise cajoled their dogs to ever better performances.
The Frankford facilities are used as the training base for the Belleville Hot Diggity Dogs club. People can sign-up for beginner through advanced levels here. The training and race area is quite spacious as the pictures above attest to.
And as promised by one of the Frankford regulars, the racing got better later in the day. Here is proof:
Hot Diggity Dogs are great fun to watch. If you would like to see the club and dogs in action this summer checkout their Summer events schedule:
