Flyball Info

Training venue - Top Demesnes, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham

The club has a competing flyball team called the Barney Bullets. In August 2000 Barney Bullets qualified to attend the national flyball finals at Crufts in May 2001. They progressed from the quarterfinals to the semi finals where the eventual winners, Daventree, knocked them out of the competition.

What is Flyball? – For the uninitiated. It’s fast, its manic and its great fun. There are usually dogs and balls flying all over the place. The dogs love it and the handlers too.

Flyball is a relatively new sport for dogs. Sources have it that it originated on the west coast of America in the early 70’s when a man invented a machine for his ball crazy dog to trigger the machine and throw a tennis ball for itself.

Imagine a relay race with dogs instead of people, and a tennis ball instead of a baton and you’re almost there. Flyball racing has 2 teams of 4 dogs competing against each other over 4 low jumps spaced 10’ apart. Each dog has to successfully jump the 4 jumps; at the end of the jumps is a machine known as a flyball box. The box has a pedal (release mechanism) at the front, which the dog needs to activate to release a ball held at the back of the box. The dog must catch the ball and return over the 4 jumps back to where they started from with the ball to successfully complete its leg. When the 1^st dog returns a 2^nd dog is released to complete its leg in the same manner, 3^rd and 4^th dogs in the same way. When all 4 dogs have successfully returned to the start line the run is ended. The winning team is the one that has all 4 dogs back to the finish first. There are 3 heats to the tournament. Best out of 3 wins.

There are 2 different types of flyball training. There is BFA training (British Flyball association) and Crufts style flyball. The main difference in these is the style of box used.

In BFA flyball there are competition leagues and lots of tournaments. For more details see BFA Website.

In the Crufts style flyball there are not as many competitions but there are various heats held throughout the country with the top 4 teams from each heat getting to compete in the national flyball finals at Crufts. The Barney Bullets have qualified on 2 consecutive years, 2001 they reached the semi-finals and hope to do even better in March 2002.

Would your dog enjoy it? Bet it would! Contact us for further details.