Well, the last tourney of the NAFA year is in the books. Thank you FAME for making it awesome! From the welcome gifts to the dessert/hospitality table, everything was fantastic! We also enjoyed the food truck, SO good!!
Our teams had great results with Aviators taking 1st both days in Regular 1 and Red Eye placing 2nd on Saturday and improving to 1st on Sunday in Open 2. It was fantastic to race with our friend Donna and her boy Joey. Thanks also to Diane for helping our teams. It was great to have you guys with us this weekend!
Our junior handler Braxton took on the job of running Rev full time on his own and rocked it! He even posted a 0.016 start!! When he was not handling he was an awesome ball shagger. Proud of this boy! #NextGen
Fitz and Bond knocked green dogs out of the park. This was Fitz’s last time sitting out and we are pretty pumped to see her officially hit the lanes in October!
We went into this weekend feeling stress-free, which was a complete change from how the rest of our white-knuckle season had gone. We had clinched the Regional Championship in August, but boy was it a rough and bumpy road to get there this season.
We knew that we would have some growing pains when we débuted our new line-up in April. Nika would be replacing Brooke and those 4 dogs had run together for a while; so we expected the new lineup would need a bit of time to gel. We worked hard over the winter to prepare ourselves for this and everything seemed to be on track. Until we stepped on the lanes in April…it seemed like everything that could go wrong, did. And oh, did we mention that every other team in the Region had awesome new dogs coming up and they were being débuted tournament after tournament? Division 1 was getting faster and we were in trouble!
There were tons of ups and downs, new lineups, training issues, injuries, you name it! Week by week at practices and tournament after tournament, things improved. Gradually it was all starting to come together again. By mid-July we
were feeling hopeful that maybe, just maybe we had things figured out.
Every Championship we earn has special meaning. I think that this one will be remembered for the adversity we faced. My first blog post of the year was titled “Nothing Worth Having Ever Comes Easy” and that has never been more true.
Our dogs had a spectacular year, with all but 3 earning new titles. Brooke earned her 40K, Callie earned her 30K, Maya eanred her ONYX, Nika earned her FDCH-G & FM, Nitsa earned her FM and Rev earned his 40K. Raine, Pongo & Feist are all very close to their next respective titles and they should earn them in early 2018.
Some changes for our dogs this year. Brooke moved to Red Eye where she absolutely loves running anchor. Nika took Brooke’s position on Aviators and is running in second position after Nitsa. Pongo has officially moved to part time; and Rev & Raine are also running a reduced number of races. Look for more changes to these teams in the upcoming season!
October marks a new NAFA year and a clean slate. We are excited to see what the future holds for our team and Region 10. It is pretty impressive that a small region like ours now has 3 of the 4 Division 1 teams who have run in the 15’s. Next season is going to be lots of fun and we can’t wait to get started! Thankfully we only have to wait a few weeks because FnF’s tournament is October 21 & 22!
Until Next Time,
Holly
Our teams had great results with Aviators taking 1st both days in Regular 1 and Red Eye placing 2nd on Saturday and improving to 1st on Sunday in Open 2. It was fantastic to race with our friend Donna and her boy Joey. Thanks also to Diane for helping our teams. It was great to have you guys with us this weekend!
Our junior handler Braxton took on the job of running Rev full time on his own and rocked it! He even posted a 0.016 start!! When he was not handling he was an awesome ball shagger. Proud of this boy! #NextGen
Fitz and Bond knocked green dogs out of the park. This was Fitz’s last time sitting out and we are pretty pumped to see her officially hit the lanes in October!
We went into this weekend feeling stress-free, which was a complete change from how the rest of our white-knuckle season had gone. We had clinched the Regional Championship in August, but boy was it a rough and bumpy road to get there this season.
We knew that we would have some growing pains when we débuted our new line-up in April. Nika would be replacing Brooke and those 4 dogs had run together for a while; so we expected the new lineup would need a bit of time to gel. We worked hard over the winter to prepare ourselves for this and everything seemed to be on track. Until we stepped on the lanes in April…it seemed like everything that could go wrong, did. And oh, did we mention that every other team in the Region had awesome new dogs coming up and they were being débuted tournament after tournament? Division 1 was getting faster and we were in trouble!
There were tons of ups and downs, new lineups, training issues, injuries, you name it! Week by week at practices and tournament after tournament, things improved. Gradually it was all starting to come together again. By mid-July we
were feeling hopeful that maybe, just maybe we had things figured out.
Every Championship we earn has special meaning. I think that this one will be remembered for the adversity we faced. My first blog post of the year was titled “Nothing Worth Having Ever Comes Easy” and that has never been more true.
Our dogs had a spectacular year, with all but 3 earning new titles. Brooke earned her 40K, Callie earned her 30K, Maya eanred her ONYX, Nika earned her FDCH-G & FM, Nitsa earned her FM and Rev earned his 40K. Raine, Pongo & Feist are all very close to their next respective titles and they should earn them in early 2018.
Some changes for our dogs this year. Brooke moved to Red Eye where she absolutely loves running anchor. Nika took Brooke’s position on Aviators and is running in second position after Nitsa. Pongo has officially moved to part time; and Rev & Raine are also running a reduced number of races. Look for more changes to these teams in the upcoming season!
October marks a new NAFA year and a clean slate. We are excited to see what the future holds for our team and Region 10. It is pretty impressive that a small region like ours now has 3 of the 4 Division 1 teams who have run in the 15’s. Next season is going to be lots of fun and we can’t wait to get started! Thankfully we only have to wait a few weeks because FnF’s tournament is October 21 & 22!
Until Next Time,
Holly