Frisbee fun for K9 club

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This article was published 08/07/2018 (2697 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Sunday morning air on Hampton Street was filled with barks and cheers, flying Frisbees and a seemingly endless parade of dogs leaping to catch them.

It was the last day of the five-week summer season for the International K9 Frisbee Toss & Fetch League — and out of 72 clubs around the world, Winnipeg’s club started the morning in second place, based on the club’s combined team scores.

“We somehow managed,” said Shawn MacTavish, club captain and head trainer with River City Disc Dogs.

“Our first week, we ended up in fourth (place). Second week, we moved to third. Third week, we got to second. Fourth week, we held onto second place and now, this is our last week.”

Each K9 Frisbee Toss & Fetch club is comprised of teams, with one dog and one human handler per team.

The handlers and their dogs start at one end of a 50-yard long trapezoidal field, divided into ten-yard zones.

In each 60-second round, the handler throws a frisbee for the dog to chase, catch and return as many times as possible. Catches in far-away zones earn extra points.

To minimize chaos, only one team plays at any given time. In between rounds on Sunday, most of the roughly 30 dogs lounged in kennels around the field at the Bord-Aire Community Centre near Polo Park.

“Any dog can play this game,” MacTavish said, although larger dogs that can quickly cover long distances have a clear advantage. (That didn’t stop Sunday’s smallest competitor — Queso, a 16-pound Jack Russell Terrier — from taking the field with teammate Donna MacTavish, Shawn’s wife.)

“It’s just a really super-fun way to get out and play different games, and build a relationship and teamwork with your dog,” Shawn MacTavish said.

Even though canines were clearly the most valuable players in Sunday’s event, their humans also got a workout.

“You get tired out there — I’m sweating,” Ally Boni said during a rest on the sidelines with her four-year-old border collie Aura, who had just finished catching every Frisbee Boni threw.

“Because you’re calling your dog, you have to run, you have to throw. Absolutely, it’s fun for both the dog and the person.”

Aura herself had no comment, but shared her feelings about K9 Frisbee Toss & Fetch by attentively watching the next dog up, alternating between whining for another round and flopping over to receive belly rubs.

“This is definitely one of her favourite sports to play,” Boni said. “She loves to run and jump and just grab that disc.”

Derek Micholson and his wife Jenna originally wanted a “medium-energy-dog, something easy that we could just cuddle with on the couch.”

But then, they fell in love with Nash, a cross between a border collie and a blue heeler. Even though he’s not quite two years old, Nash was this season’s top dog going into Sunday morning’s play.

What makes Nash so good at K9 Frisbee Toss & Fetch?

“He’s totally crazy, and doesn’t know when to quit — he’s got way too much energy,” Micholson said.

“He’s fast, he’s agile, he knows how to catch. He’s smart, he knows exactly what to do.”

Perhaps most importantly, Nash brings the Frisbee straight back, “drops it right in front of you, runs around and just keeps going… he’s halfway down the field before I even let go of the disc.”

In a sport with strictly-timed rounds, that’s a big advantage. Some of Nash’s fellow four-legged club members were liable to savour each catch, running out the clock by parading their frisbee around the field before returning it for the next throw.

Even if Nash doesn’t feel the need to show off his talent, his handler Micholson freely admitted to a bit of bragging.

“We were out at Folk Fest all weekend, and I think we just talked about Nash’s Frisbee skills the whole time.”

solomon.israel@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @sol_israel