What is a flyball?

Flyball is a team relay race – each team consisting of 4 dogs and their handlers. The object is for each dog in turn to negotiate a line of 4 low jumps, retrieve a tennis ball from the box at the end, and then return to the start/finish line with the ball. As one dog finishes, the next dog starts until the whole team has successfully retrieved the tennis balls. The winner is, of course, the fastest team to complete.
There are two types of Flyball:
Crufts Flyball.
The Crufts flyball has jump heights which are fixed at 12” high, irrespective of the height of the competing dogs. The box used has a sling type action – the dog operates a pedal at the front of the box, a ball is then ‘slung’ over the box from the cup at the rear of the box – the dog has to catch the ball and then return to the start/finish line with the ball.
Judging is by eye, and timing is by hand-operated stop watches.
We did have a team in the finals of the 2007 Crufts YKC Team Competition and finished in 4th place – a great achievement considering it was our first go!

BFA (British Flyball Association) Flyball.
BFA Flyball is a comparatively new sport which came to the UK from North America around 1990. The BFA flyball tends to be more up-to-date inasmuch that the judging and timing are mainly electronic and therefore more accurate and fair than stop watches etc.

The other main differences are with the box type and the height of the jumps. The box is a front loaded box which allows the dogs to turn on the front of the box as they take the ball, which tends to be quicker and in the opinion of some, more safe. The jump heights vary according to the smallest dog in the team – the smaller the dog, the lower the jump height.

Springers Flyball

We have been competing in BFA Flyball since 1999 but compete only at a few events each year. This is mainly because we do have a very diverse ‘club life’ and do not devote our energies to any single discipline. However, we are still very successful generally, and we do enjoy the competitions we go to – which is the main object of the exercise! We also include flyball demonstrations as part of our show displays and all of our flyball dogs do agility – but not all of our agility dogs do flyball!