Kirkcaldy canines fly like the wind as fast-paced sport of flyball comes to town

It has brought new life to the former Strand Lighting building at Mitchelston Industrial Estate, using the land for major events.

The move into town came after previously being based in Cowdenbeath.

Michelle (39), is the founder of dog charity Canine welfare and Training as well as the Carnegie Canines Flyball Team.

She first saw flyball on TV at Crufts in 2013 and brought the sport to Fife at the annual Bark in the Park event held by Second Chance Kennels at Lochore Meadows in 2016.

Flyball is a four-dog relay race with dogs jumping over hurdles before reaching a raised platform at the end of the course that shoots a ball out when their paws tap it.

Within milliseconds, the dog catches the ball and runs back through the course to the team at the starting point.

And it's lightning quick! The current UK Flyball record being 14.64 seconds – the current Crufts record is 15.20 seconds.

Flyball is the fastest-growing dog sport in the UK, and was pioneered in California in the 1970s by Herbert Wagner after he invented the ball-release system at the game's heart in order to demonstrate obedience in the dogs that he trained.

Michelle, who lives in Dunfermline with her fiancee David and their three-year-old son Jayden, said: “Having seen flyball on TV at Crufts in 2013 I wanted my dog that I had at the time, a wee springer spaniel named Lucy, who was ball mad, to get into this sport.

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"I had never seen or heard of it before so I found a team in Livingston, and we went for a session with them.

"From there I started googling flyball jump plans and looking on auction sites for boxes so I could bring this sport to Fife as there was nothing like it.

"The charity I founded, Canine Welfare and Training, came from doing flyball demos with my team at the annual Bark in the Park event. After seeing everyone enjoy the demos and stalls and have a go at the show made me want to bring this to more than just a yearly event and get more people involved in canine training and sports.”

Although flyball is hugely popular worldwide, it is not recognised as an official sport in the UK by Sport Scotland or Sport England. Michelle aims wants to change this, highlighting that the variety of people and dogs in the sport is huge.

It is very competitive with teams from all over Scotland coming to events organised by myself and my team.

"If we are not hosting events, we are travelling up and down the country to tournaments organised by other British Flyball Association (BFA) clubs or the British Championships each year.

"Due to COVID, this year the BFA has changed to a festival of flyball instead of the championships to adhere to any pandemic restrictions.”

Michelle owns three dogs, with two of them competing in flyball

“Of my own dogs two of them race, Islay is a female collie whippet cross at five-years-old, and Derek, a cocker spaniel that is three-years-old.

"Derek and his brother Buddy are a personal achievement – at the age of seven months they were handed into Second Chance Kennels and scared of everything.

"I got a call from Frank Conyon at the kennels telling me all about these two wee boys. I went to meet them and, from there I went to the kennels day in and day out so they got use to me.

"After a couple of weeks I thought it would be best for me to foster them at home with my four other dogs I had at the time.

“I started doing some flyball training with both of them, and they have taken to it very well. It takes roughly six months to train a dog to do flyball, but these two spaniels have excelled.

"Derek is now in my top team running as the height dog, and his brother Buddy is with one of the other ladies in the team.”

Michelle explained the importance of a flyball teams height dog.

“A height dog is an important dog to a team as the jumps in flyball vary from six inches to 12 inches depending on the smallest dog in the team. For instance if you had a team of four collies - a very popular breed in flyball - the dogs would be jumping 12 inches which tires them out quicker and slows them down a bit.

"If you have three collies and a spaniel, then the latte will lower the jumps to roughly eight or nine inches which allows the collies to race over them, but you lose a bit of speed with your height dog.

"These days though some height dogs are running the same times as collies, doing runs in roughly four seconds to cover 102 ft including the turn and catch the ball on the flyball box.”

Michelle adds that as Flyball is not a recognised sport it has been increasingly difficult to find suitable venues.

"Tournaments are few and far between in Scotland. We run them outdoors during the summer usually on a farmer’s field hoping that the weather is on our side.

"When it comes to winter we struggle to find affordable venues that firstly allow dogs in and are big enough to run the tournaments.

“We want to get to the point where we have a venue that we could have events running indoors and outdoors from Flyball, Agility, Hoopers, Dog Showing, Rally Obedience, Cani-Cross etc.

"We want to bring a Crufts style event to Scotland on a regular basis so people can find out what they can do with their canine companions.”

For more information about Flyball, please visit: Canine Welfare and Training

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