today henry will have a go at a canine sport called fly ball it's a head-to-head relay
race consisting of two teams of four dogs running along a track while jumping hurdles
the aim of the race is for each dog to retrieve a tennis ball from a
spring-loaded box and bring it back down the track to the finish line to show us how it's
done we're off to meet the lincolnshire high flyers current indoor champions of the sport
hi guys how are we hi good you compete and you've done some pretty amazing things haven't you yeah
so you're the champions we came third in the world so you have the third fastest dog team in the
whole world yes that's incredible how would you feel about doing a relay with our dogs and henry
i'd love to you'll need to practice first definitely why don't you go and have a practice on
our course come on pooch let's go practice come on dog handler alicia is going to teach henry and me
how to run fly ball now then what does henry need to learn so there's three main techniques
yep he needs to run fast yep you can do that yeah he's just showing you that and running over
the hurdles and collecting the ball that sounds simple doesn't it pooch yeah you should give it a
whirl yeah he's already on his way on yeah come on classic henry always wanting to do his own thing
lesson one running fast along the track so what you need to do is run really fast
you need to be really loud and you need to call henry i'm going to say ready you're going to run
and ready henry will run on go okay i can do that are we ready yes okay ready you go oh that's nice
yeah yeah
oh you're such a good boy deserves a big hug hey where do you think you're going
that's not a bad start i'll take that yeah it was really good
all right moving on let's get him over the jump let's do that henry peach where are you
lesson two jumping the hurdles are you ready
are we ready we're gonna go ready set go so you're gonna go on ready yes
what is part three so i think we can um get him to go and get a ball over the jump from the top
of the jump and then come back to you so let's try and see if you can send him for the ball
and if he'll come back to you okay this is quite hard though sometimes
and he's only just started so we'll see what he can do lesson three fetching a tennis ball
all right ready so what you need to do then is you need to take him off the lead hold him like
i did did the ready set go on go release him i'm going to put the ball down he's going to get the
ball from the floor and you need to call him back and run away right i think i got all that
ready set set go one two come back come back look come back
good boy fantastic he came back to you honestly i think i got over excited and
i wasn't sure whether to give him the ball or the food or whatever because he came back to me
he did a really good job didn't you good boy it's not just about the dog though is it trainer needs
some training and involvement as well right yeah so it's about the handler and the dog and creating
a bond and them you trusting each other you know it's a fast sport so you need to make that
you both need to trust each other when you're running a dog it's time for the relay so let's
meet the dogs with their handlers vincent and ping sophie and talas cess and nano and tilly and orson
well why don't we all um do a relay race together sounds good yeah henry did it earlier so let's put
him at the end and see see what happens let's do it let's see what happens shall we pooch
usually in a relay there are four dogs but they've made a special exception for me and
henry to join in four dogs will race to the end of the track jump over the hurdles and retrieve
the ball then henry will run last here we go it's time for the final challenge wish you slug ready
these guys make this guys and dogs
make this look easy let's not give up the day job pooch come on let's go