Lots and lots of MAINEiacs made the trip to North Smithfield RI for BARKaritaville hosted by ARFF. 
 
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..... No, really! It was a great time!!!
 
We brought 3 teams this past weekend:
 
WTF? Multi (Performance team)
 
Curly - 561
Reese - 531
Koko (playing the role of Rita, lol)
Saoirse - 536
Banner - 55
Levi
 
WTF? ran as a performance team this weekend. What that means is, we get to play and earn points but we cannot place. Rita was unable to play, so instead of pulling the team all together and since it was too late to change the team to an open team we had the pleasure of having Judy and Koko join us. This team ran really well together! 
 
Curly is doing so well in start and his left hand turn looks fabulous in a full time spot! Reese was very consistent and even had to run a race being handled by Sarah C and going past Banner and I waiting at the line to be anchor. He had no concerns about us. Saoirse and Sarah H had lots of fun in the lanes together. She wasn't so sure about the few heats Banner ran and coming by her like a freight train. We made some adjustments and everything worked out. Banner and Levi each ran in 1 race. Levi did his job really well and made good choices when he heard his entire village calling for him! Banner held up pretty well and will hopefully keep getting a few more heats each tournament. 
 
Shut the front door! Reg 2 - 2nd place!
 
Roxie - 630
Pivot - 630
Arrow - 730 (Arrow ran a race w/ AFU to help Dakota get her Iron Dog. Congrats Dakota!)
Kessie - 600
Eliot - 30
Tilt 
 
This team had a bumpy start but managed to work things out over the course of the weekend. We had a little issue of a dog from another team crossing over. Pivot did the stop drop and roll, so she literally just rolled with it! Lisa, did not! Lisa was taken out and ended up injuring her foot and later made a trip to quick care for an xray. The good news is that it was just a contusion and with some ice, rest and meds she is on the mend. Rebeccah jumped in an ran Pivot for the remainder of the weekend and they did really well together. Roxie was start dog again this weekend. She seems to really like that spot and she can get in and get out quick! Arrow and Deb were getting really consistent together and having some nice passes. Chris ran Kessie and is becoming a pro! However Kessie keeps him in check whenever she thinks he isn't paying enough attention. Eliot did a few heats this weekend and had his own cheering squad! He is really such a nice boy! Tilt didn't get to run after Lisa got hurt, he didn't seem bothered by it though. 
 
Fine Whine - Vets - 1st place!
 
Shilo - 655
Sammie - 655
Sassy - 555
Luna - 655
Bullet - 100
Leap 
 
This Vets team is kicking butt!!! A few dropped balls and a few bobbles, but really running so well together. It's hard to pick out anything to say about them individually because they all really know their jobs and do it so well! This team had lots of times in the 20 - 22 second range. Bullet got to run a full race for Sassy. He held his turn really well and seemed to be having fun out there. Leap didn't get to play this weekend, but I think she was just happy to visit with her peeps. 
 
Picnic and Peanut warmed up with CXM. Picnic did get to full recalls and was super happy and focused on Rebeccah. Peanut also got to full recalls and did lots of box work with lots of distractions. He made huge progress in a new venue this weekend. 
 
New Titles:
 
Eliot FD
Arrow FDCh-G
Curly FMX
 
After all the craziness in the lanes, lots of us took some paradise pictures of the dogs and we headed to dinner. It was a long 2 days of racing and we were all definitely tired when we made it back home. Great team work MAINEiacs!!!!
 
Up next:
Prince Edward Island 
 
~Staci Yates

​The MAINEiacs finally got to play flyball again at our 1st tournament of the year in Dover NH at the Maine Coast Runners Spring Fling. This is one of our favorite tournaments and the largest turn-out for our team other than our own tournament. I have a lot to say, so get readddddyyyyy!
 
First off we had a surprise visit from Wayne and Cynthia and Janice!!!! It was great to see you guys and catch up for a little bit!
 
A big MAINEiacs welcome to our newest member Chris and Peanut, along with the rest of the family (Linda, Oliver and Roo) who came along to help out and support the Chris/P'Nut and the team. 
 
We brought 4 teams this year:
 
Shut the Front Door! - Reg 2 - 3rd place finish
Roxie - 657
Pivot - 657
Arrow - 657
Abbey - 632
Banner - 25
Peanut
 
What the Fuzz? - Multi 1 - 4th place finish
Reese - 606
Sassy - 606
Luna - 601
Saoirse - 606
Levi - 5
Shamu
 
Fine Whine - Vets/Open 3 - 2nd place finish
Shilo - 281
Sammie - 291
Leap - 170
Ember (Mystic Storm Chasers), Mulligan (WMM) and Stella (Mass Chaos)
 
Funk You Up! - Open 2 - 5th place finish
Curly - 556
Kessie - 551
Rita - 556
Gemma - 485
Tilt - 76
Bullet
 
You can tell that the MAINEiacs have been practicing a lot this past year. We came out and got the job done and worked really well together! There were a few bumps in the road with a few early passes, a couple false starts, a few missed jumps and dropped balls. But honestly that was so minor that I can't even tell you who did what, other than I know I passed Sammie into Shilo at the 1st jump. Ooops!!!! Sorry Shi!
 
Roxie was an awesome little start dog! She was rearing and ready to go for each race. She did get crossed over on and we all held our breath as it happened. She recovered so quickly! She knows her MAINEiacs have her back!
 
Pivot was height dog extraordinaire! She runs her little heart out each race and has become such a solid little racer!
 
Arrow has a need for speed! He ran flawlessly for Deb this weekend and is really starting to get some great passes.
 
Abbey ran a full time spot this weekend!! She did so good and worked so hard to stay in her lane! She loves to race and watches the other team the entire way down the lane to make sure she is beating that other dog! She has made so much progress over the winter.
 
Banner warmed up this weekend showing off his left hand "go bump" turn! He did really well and earned himself 2 heats! He held his strides and did a very nice turn while staying up on his feet. The work in progress continues, but this is all headed in the right direction.
 
Peanut debuted in a warm up spot this weekend. This was a huge deal for him as there were many more people around that are not "his peeps". He got more confident with each warm up and was able to do full run backs by the end of the weekend, was wagging his tail and hanging out in the back of the lanes while his team ran. 
 
Reese loves being the start dog! This dog cracks me up! He is a MAINEiac through and through. He had some nice starts in the 0.015 range and was consistently running with lots of times in the 4.40 -  4.70 range. 
 
Sassy loves running with the border collies, but this weekend she found out what it was like to run with a "nugget"! Sassy passed Reese with no problems and was super excited for each heat!
 
Luna ran really well in the 3rd spot. She was very speedy and passed like a pro and let out a few barks at Sassy at the start line to make sure she didn't eat her treats!
 
Saoirse ran her little butt off! She was sassy and barking all weekend and had a lot of fun playing her favorite game! Her turn looks great and the proof is in the pictures! 
 
Levi did lots of warm ups this weekend and earned himself a heat at the end of the day on Sunday. He is showing such focus on Deb and is making huge progress at every practice and tournament!
 
Shamu and Anna warmed up together. They are becoming a nice pair and working well together. Shamu was a little distracted but worked really well through all of it.
 
Shilo got to run on a vets team this weekend. I may be wrong, but I think this was his first time on vets at 11yrs old. He is such a great start dog. Rebeccah even ran him this weekend. It's nice to see them in the lanes together again.
 
Sammie ran really well this weekend. She only bobbled the ball once or twice which is really good for the old lady! She's still running pretty fast too!
Leap also ran on the vets team this weekend. She did great passing into some dogs she doesn't know and was a speedy little anchor dog!
 
Curly ran in start for the 1st time this weekend. He and Amy figured out the lights pretty quick and were getting some nice start times. Curly is really loving the sport with his left hand "go bump" turn.
 
Kessie was teaching Chris the game of flyball in a tournament setting this weekend! He ran her really well and figured out the sequence of thumping the chicken on the floor to the key to getting it away from her quickly. She was a rock star this weekend!
Rita ran a full time spot this weekend too! She had no problems passing Kessie. She is turning out to be a nice core dog!
 
Gemma was happy to work in another new environment. The ice arena is a little chilly for her so she bundled up in between races. She got a little tired near late morning on Sunday from all of the excitement. She took a little nap in the car and then came back in and finished the weekend strong.
 
Tilt was saying "put me in coach/captain" all weekend! He was warming up and doing really well. He stepped up and did some nice heats on Sunday. He caught the ball off of the box really well and stayed right in his lane and focused on Lisa the entire way back!
 
Bullet warmed up and is still working on coming back from when he was chased a while back. He was distracted and lost some confidence, but was definitely building it back up and wanting to play the game with his mom!
 
Murphy warmed up with CXM and really handled the busy environment really well and was doing some great recalls and box work.
 
Eliot warmed up with NasDog and did some full recalls and some box work and handled the tournament noise really well too.
 
We did some mat time on Sat night with Quincy, Picnic, Jester and Thistle. All of them did a good job and made some progress in the lanes from recalls to box work.
 
New titles:
Tilt - FD
Gemma - FDCh - S
Arrow - FDCh - S
 
Final thoughts:
I hope I captured a little bit of what went on for everyone over the weekend! We ate well as usual, we had lots of laughs and some good racing! A big thank you to our captain, Rebeccah! She gave up her weekend pet massage class to be there with us. We are very fortunate to have such a great leader/trainer/friend!
 
Up next:
Greenfield!
 
Submitted by Staci Yates

The MAINEiacs represented in Dover NH this past weekend! I have so much to re-cap!

I'll start at the top. We started the weekend with SDR on Friday night. Arrow made his debut with restrained recalls on the flat. He's a flyball dog in the making! Ziggy showed us that he didn't forget what flyball was on his winter vacation in FL. This earned him a warm up spot on WTF! Roxie, Rita, Pivot, Bullet and Levi all did full runs and had really great focus while working in a new environment. Bullet and Roxie also earned warm up spots on Bring it! 

We then had a very tasty dinner at Cartelli's together.

Sat. racing started with mimosas to kick off the 2014 region 13 season. We had 3 teams representing The MAINEiacs this weekend.

WTF! Multi 2
Sammie, Kessie, Luna, Leap, Karmela, Ziggy

Bring it! Regular 2
Acre, Reese, Curly, Saoirse, Roxie, Bullet

Fine Whine! Vets
Shilo, Chance, Sassy, Jada, Xena, Winston(WW)

All 3 teams ran really well with only a few  kinks to work out with starts, passing and dropped balls.

Rebeccah created dry erase boards for each team that she would write our warm up plan and team info on for each race. This was an awesome addition to our already organized group! 

Sammie earned her FMCh (15k) title on Sat! I am pretty proud of her!

We had our biggest pot luck ever for lunch on Sat, which then fed us for dinner too!

Sarah H. was surprised with a puppy shower for Arrow. She shared the awesome gluten free paw print whoopie pie cake with Janice and Buster. Buster the flying Corgi has officially retired from flyball! We will all miss Buster in the lanes and Janice encouraging him to jump each jump!

After all this we had mat time for the dogs not on any line ups. Riot came out and looked awesome after the couple month break he has had from flyball. Banner got to stretch his legs with some recalls against Gemma. Gemma was pretty unfazed by the environment and she got some full runs in too! She'll do anything for cheese balls! You would have thought that Rita and Levi practice here all the time because they both worked as if it was FFD. Tilt did some great recalls too. All the green dogs did an awesome job and are getting closer and closer to their race day debut!

Then day 2 started!  

All the teams were running like well oiled machines to start Sundays racing. Roxie, Bullet, Jada and Karmela got to run a few heats each. Xena and Ziggy did more warm ups and were getting into their groove. 

Victoria and Deb did a great job stepping in and running Shilo and Kessie! 

We continued to eat all day long on Sunday since we had so much food. 

Some big highlights of the weekend were: 

Sassy ran a 5.19!

Curly did clean up in the lanes of an extra ball or 2!

Sammie bobbled, almost knocked the boards over and managed to get back in the lane!

Luna self regulated with a bark at Kessie a few times which made a perfect pass!

Saoirse had an awesome re-run where she just followed Sarah's direction and spun around and got sent back down the lane for another ball!

Shilo had a 3.89 at almost 10yrs old!

Reese got to play start dog and got a perfect 0.000 start!

Chance was super solid and was still ready to race more when he was headed to the car to go home!

Kessie screamed her lil head off and was a very good girl for V!

Acre loves being start dog and does a happy dance the entire time!

Leap ran her lil heart out and seemed really happy to be playing flyball this weekend!

Roxie seems to like being bunched up with her Bring it! boys to rev her up and she did complete a really nice heat and showed that her hard work is paying off!

Karmela did a couple heats and was happy that she got to play a little bit!

Jada came out and was single striding on the way back for each of her heats!

Bullet keeps showing more and more interest in flyball and looks like he is having some fun!

To wrap things up from my long winded review, here are the final places.

WTF! 2nd place
Sammie, Kessie, Luna each earned 646 points, Leap earning 601 and Karmela earning 45 points

Bring it! 3rd place
Acre, Reese, Curly each earned 518 points, Saoirse earned 511 and Roxie earned 7 points

Fine Whine! 2nd place
Shilo, Sassy, Chance each earned 318 points and Jada earned 77 points

Thank you to all the MAINEiacs for working together at SDR, mat time and getting each team in and out of the lanes with such organization. Also for all the food!!!!

I apologize if I've missed anyone or anything that was exciting!

A group of MAINEiacs couldn't go without racing much longer. So we made the trip to Dogzworth in Montréal for a 1 day tournament. We traveled with 3 vehicles, 7 people and 14 dogs! The drive up was really easy and didn't seem like it took that long. 

This is a limited frills type of tournament. There was no single dog racing and not many people even come the day before to set up. But you know us Americans! We needed to set up the night before. 

We had a great dinner and then settled in for the night.  Racing doesn't start very early in Canada,so we had continental breakfast, packed the vans and truck and off to play flyball we went. 

While we has 14 dog with us, we did have much for back up dogs. Rebeccah put together 2 solid teams! 

Bring it!
Acre, Reese, Curly and Saoirse
This team ran soooo well together! These dogs have been running as a team for almost a year now. They really all love running with each other, and are taking passes like champs! We ran 5 of 5 for 4 races. Bring it! won 17 of the 20 heats for a 1st place finish is regular 2!!! Very nice showing for the 1st tournament of 2014!
Team points 456

What the fuzz!
Shilo, Kessie, Sammie, Leap
Another great team for FM! Shilo and his girls came to play and that they did! We had some really fun races against Ready Set Go with some smack talking in the lanes and fist bumps to end the races! Deb pulled her calf muscle in the first heat so Sarah jumped in and ran Shilo in start(she has never run Shi in a tournament and never run start). Her first start was .004! Deb managed to suffer through and get back in the lanes with a bit of a hobble before the end of the day. This team had a round robin and we went into it in 2nd place. We ended the day in 2nd place for multi 1!
Team points 455

Racing was done by 3:00 and we were ready to hit the road by 3:30. After a quick lunch/dinner we were on the road home by 5:00. It was a long drive home in the dark on the winding roads of VT and NH but we hit Buxton at 10:00. Lisa still had a ways to go from there, but she was re-caffinated and made it the rest of the way.

We are hoping to make the trip back to Montréal next March to kick off the racing year.

We have a few practices coming up, so lets practice hard and get rrrrreadyyyyy for Dover!!

First off I have to say,  Wow!!! What a weekend!!!! This tournament ran very smoothly with so many compliments from our vendors, competitors and judges.

We had so many big moments of the weekend with Bullet getting his FD running with CXM. Saoirse got her FDCH-silver on our multi team, Curly got his FDCH-gold on our regular team, Breezie and Hydro both ran on vets and both got their FMCH, what a great accomplishment to end their flyball careers. Happy retirement to them! Last but not least on titles is Sassy, she received her ONYX on our multi team!

All of our teams ran extremely well this past weekend. 

What the fuzz!
Multi 1 - best time 20.571
Lucy, Sammie, Saoirse, Sassy came in 4th and all received 625 points. 
These girls ran so solid this weekend with so few faults and lots and lots of clean runs! Great job girls and Joey!

Bring it!
Regular 2 - best time 20.948
Acre, Reese, Curly, Leap came in 2nd and all received 531 points.
This team had plenty of early passes this weekend, most of them were my fault. We have all been working really hard on passing and really were getting some great passes too! The early passes were only a dog hair early and not a whole Curly early! 

Shut the front door!
Open 2 - best time 20.552
Polly (486 points) Kessie (491 points) Krave (491 points) Luna (466 points) Jada (30 points). This team came in 3rd place.
What a great team this group turned out to be for dogs that never run together. Once we figured out the spacing and timing this team was on fire and even had a breakout time. I know we don't want to breakout, but kinda cool that they ran a 20.446!!

Perfectly Seasoned!
Vets - best time 21.065
Shilo (391 points), Hydro (276 points), Chance (391 points), Breezie (376 points), Karmela (115 points), Buster (15 points)
This team came in 3rd place. Shhhh! Don't tell them that this team is for the old dogs. The dogs don't know they are older yet! This team ran really well together and had lots of fun while doing it!

We have lots of young dogs coming along with training and a few dogs that are making their way back to the lanes. All had great moments during SDR and mat time. Watch for these dogs in lanes soon! Roxie, Levi, Riot, Ziggy, Thistle, Rita, Pivot, Tilt, Xena and Banner.

I can't say it enough how well our teams ran and how organized our tournament went this year. It was so nice to have so many gather for dinner afterwards at McSeagull's! 

A huge thank you to John and Tracy (V's friend) for volunteering to help us out!

I hope I captured a lil bit of everything for everyone!

Thanks

A couple of the MAINEiacs and a few soon to be MAINEiacs packed up the vehicles and left South Portland, ME at 5:45am to travel 2+ hours for 14 minutes each of flyball today.  IT WAS AWESOME!!  Very Proud of Saoirse, Curly, Reese and Banner.  This was brand new for 3 of the dogs and 2 of their handlers, everyone did a great job! Worked through distractions and a new venue for some successful runs!  Big Thanks to Canine Mutiny for hosting, Sue from CxM helping us and the Fast Attack crew for helping Banner with is his passing practice!  Nice Job, Flyballers!!

Big thanks to Sarah Holmes for being the only one to remember a video camera today! Thanks so much for taking the videos AND posting them!