West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 2.1 million. Amidst those millions of people, in one of West Yorkshire’s five metropolitan boroughs, is the City of Leeds from which the Leeds Owlers Flyball Club hails.

Jess Norman, one of the Owlers 27 members, sent an e-mail to Inside Flyball in April introducing herself, her club and their dogs. It seems that Flyballers from around the world keenly watch the fun we are having at U-FLI™ tournaments throughout the country on the pages of Inside Flyball. Jess thought that those of us in the States might want to get to know them as we have our Flyball friends in South Africa. While our boxes might look a little different and our point structure might accumulate at different paces, one thing remains constant whether we’re playing Flyball in Amana, Iowa or at the Drax Power Station in West Yorkshire. It’s the love of our dogs and our fascination with this competitive dog sport that keeps us connected across the continents. Even though we’re over 5,000 aeronautical miles apart we practice with our teammates each week and look forward to tournaments with fervor. We relish the ribbons and squeaky toys and can’t wait for our dogs to reach that next level or beat their best time. We take silly photos of our dogs and eagerly share them with our fellow flyballers. It’s simply all about the dogs.

Read on to meet the Leeds Owlers and their 36 happy dogs. And if you are ever in the United Kingdom, maybe you can meet up with an Owler or two over a good cup of coffee and talk about all things Flyball.

***

JESS NORMAN – the Leeds Owlers was formed in 2004 by Jane Howe, Julie Elliot, James Campbell, Jo and Craig Dawe. We currently have 27 members and 36 dogs. In the Summer months we train every Wednesday and Saturday outdoors. In the Winter months we train indoors when we can find a place. We mostly train outdoors at a football/rugby field in Cleckheaton Bradford. We compete at tournaments once a month at the winter indoor tournaments, and as often as we can if we have enough dogs to make two teams or more in the summer outdoor competitions. We do a bit of both. We have a few tournaments that are 30 minutes to an hour away and others that are two hours away. We usually don’t go farther than that. We usually camp out together but occasionally have to find a hotel.

Flyball is very popular here. There are about 6 clubs in West Yorkshire . There is at least one competition each weekend and sometimes more. Your dog can get 1000 points each year if you compete every weekend; and there are some teams that compete every weekend. Getting to the British Championship last summer was huge for us. Our team, the Barking Owlers (Jet, Buffy, Meg, Kim, Mollie & Jess) won division 8 and our Barney Owlers (Nora, George, Brooke & Murphy) finished 2nd. We were very proud.

The Barneys are the fastest Owlers team with a best ever time of 18.02 seconds achieved by Norah, Brooke, Murphy & George at Sutton Fields in May 2007. We were sure that first sub-18 second run would come our way last season but it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe this year they will manage it; they now have a serious challenger to join their elite foursome in the form of Jet who has worked her way up from the starter ranks last season. Brooke has been on serious box training throughout the winter which looks to be paying dividends and the sulky Silver Fox has now got his beloved anchor leg back after we have worked hard convincing Murph to hold on to his ball as 3rd dog!

Our Barking Owlers had a fantastic season last year with their new line up gaining a team fastest ever time of 19.76 at York Racecourse in August. Our Night Owlers had their first full season in competition last year and are magically close to that sub 22 second run. And our Eagle Owlers made a couple of appearances over the winter and proudly at the helm was former Barney lead dog Luke who despite several attempts by mum Kim to retire him at the age of 10 then 11 then 12 will hear nothing of it. Eagles team mate miniature schnauzer Little Archie at 9" gives the old man of the Owlers the chance to show he still has it (clocked at 5.35 seconds at Sheffield in January 2008).

Other than more ornate sounding tournament location names like the Drax Power Station or The Crufts, the Leeds Owlers could be any US club. Like us they have Border Collies and Bearded Collies, Labradors, Whippets, Terriers and Rottweilers. Their website boasts that they handle nearly every variety of mixed breed dog in all shapes and sizes. One glance at their website and it’s obvious that, like us, it’s all about the dogs.

The Leeds Owlers compete at tournaments that are sanctioned by the British Flyball Association, the governing body of International Flyball Racing within the United Kingdom. For more information on the British Flyball Association go to: http://www.flyball.org.uk/. To get to know the Leeds Owlers better, visit them on-line at: http://www.leedsowlers.com/.