Episode 31 - Flyball Boxes

so the the very first sort of styles were um it was the pedal the pedal one so dogs would run down over the jump still exactly the same sort of format over four jumps And they would just have to hit a pedal with two paws.

They didn't even have to do a swimmer's turn.

They'd activate a trigger, a launch, which would then fling up in the air, and that would fire the ball up and over.

So it was up to the dogs to see where the ball was, catch the ball.

If they didn't catch it straight away, run, get the ball, and then come back over the four jumps.

So looking back, because I remember watching this on YouTube from Crufts, The race looked even more chaotic than what you think now.

From just the moment that the dogs pressed that pedal and the ball, the launcher coming up and over and firing that ball, it was up to the dogs then to see where it went and to try and sort of catch it.

And then from there, so obviously people in the UK were using them as well.

And then from there came the boomerang box.

Yeah, but let's go back to that pedal box.

So I think the pedal box, it was called the catapult box, wasn't it? Or the spoon box.

So they'd run over to it and essentially there was no broad surface for the dog to hit.

No.

It was essentially a lever, wasn't it? Yes, it was, yeah.

But the principle's kind of the same though because it was still a mechanism that fired the ball.

That fired the ball.

But it fired it up and forward, didn't it? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, essentially, the dog, like you say, had to watch where the ball landed, go and run and get that ball.

And we all know that

tennis balls are particularly unreliable

in terms of where they go.

So, it's not going to land in the same position every time.

So, I was thinking how difficult that must have been to then get the dog back over the