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Milwaukee Dog’s
Great Balls of Fur headed southwest to Iowa to attend Jamm’n
K9’s 4th Annual “Dogs are Out for Summer”
tournament in Amana. Two days of good weather, some odd scheduling
and lots of racing left the team members with many good memories
as well as some prominent farmer’s tans.
Jamm’n K9’s scheduled its tournament
with teams running only in the morning or afternoon, as opposed
to all day, so the visiting teams get a chance to check out
the historic shops of The Amana Colonies and the shopping
at outlet mall nearby. Great Balls of Fur was scheduled to
race Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon, with a 24 hour
gap in between. On Saturday, the team was seeded last out
of 8 teams in Division 6, and faced the prospect of racing
teams whose seedtimes were almost a whole second faster than
its own. So, with nothing to lose, the team featuring Rosie,
Disney, Finney and Teddy readied for the first race of the
day and, most surprisingly, broke-out with a time of 19.46
(the break-out time for the division was 20.0)! In addition,
Teddy set a team record for the fastest lap time of 4.28.
The team was red-hot and would remain so for all 7 races.
Rosie (Kira Haslam), Xoe (Kimberly Follett), Disney (Mari
Pavleje), Finney (Fred Kauer), Whim (Marnie Hammerle) and
Teddy (Karen Michalski) put forth some great racing, won many
of their heats, and, with a little luck sprinkled in, earned
a 2nd place finish for the day. Not scheduled to resume racing
until noon on Sunday, the team members enjoyed some camping,
shopping and sampled some of the family-style German food
so prevalent in Amana. When racing finally began at 2pm, with
Kobi (Mark Anderson) replacing Disney in the line-up, the
dogs seemed fatigued by the long wait and the warm weather,
and the team placed 5th. Not all was bleak, however, as the
team celebrated an impressive flyball milestone for Karen
and Teddy: together they reached the 15,000 point mark to
earn the first Flyball Master Champion (FMCh) for Great Balls
of Fur! Way to go, Karen and Teddy!
All in all, some amazing accomplishments
were achieved during the weekend in Amana. As always, thanks
go out to those who helped the team at this tournament: our
boxloader, Mark Haslam, our line coach, Sally Haldorson, our
numbers duo, Evan Emmons (special kudos to Evan, who traveled
to Amana to help out even though she was not racing!), and
her sister, Patty McDanel, who was a great help and a delight
to meet. See you all in Henry!
- Submitted by Sally Haldorson
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