A big "Thank You!" to all that made the trip to Bentonville, AR for the Northwest Arkansas K9 Disc's Skyhoundz Disc Dogathon that has been dubbed the Arkansas State Disc Dog Championship.  Also a big thank you for those of you who attended the Disc Dog Training Seminar and Private Lessons with Tracy Custer, we expect to see great things from you all now.  We hope everyone had a fun time with us and their dogs, and also traveled safely.

 

Also a big thank you to our sponsors.  Our main sponsor Bigwag Dog Bakery filled the trophies with fresh dog treats.  And without the help from volunteers like Tony Burnett and Jeff Sheetz we would still be sorting those score sheets and may have never gotten to the fun stuff.  Thank you.

 

What a great turn out for the First Annual Arkansas State Disc Dog Championship!  We will certainly give the 2nd Annual ARSDDC more time or break it into a two day event.

 

The day started with the the VFW Color Guard presenting the flag for a trio of young ladies that sang the Star Spangled Banner in wonderful harmony.  And once all the fat stacks of score sheets were randomly sorted and punched into the computer we let the fur loose on the plastic.

 

45 teams competed in the Distance / Accuracy under just a light breeze that did change directions a few times during the day.  Half way through getting all our teams two rounds of D/A, everybody could begin to feel the heat, it reached 95 degrees and the Sun felt like a heat lamp from which there was no escape.  The dogs were loving the baby pools, and there was much sharing of sun-screen.

 

30 teams joined the fray for our Freestyle round.  With such a great turn out for this event, and only one day to get it in, we had to make a cut for teams to advance to the second round.  We had teams making their freestyle debut all the way up to some polished pros; all of them showing how they have fun with their dog.

 

40 teams joined in the Time Trial event.  We started it and got about four deep in the order when a brewing storm cloud let loose with some wicked lightning.  We paused and watched as the storm just sat to the South of us and barely moved.  After not seeing lightning for 20 minutes we continued and completed the Time Trial event and called it a final after just the one round due to another storm cloud that was coming right for us.

 

Competitors and staff started getting ready to be rained on for real this time.  All the tents came down and a few competitors chose to get out of town.  It was a soaker, the rain came down hard and lasted about 40 minutes.  A few hard core disc dog troopers stayed on the field and cooled off in the downpour while they warmed up their throwing arms for Extreme Distance.  Their dogs had some great catches too.

 

With the storm past us and daylight running out we took a pole of the competitors and the decision was made to take the field again and get one round of Extreme Distance in.  25 teams gripped it and ripped it.  The last ten teams to go were in very low light as the sun had been set for 40 minutes.  The last team to go, playing under a clear Half Moon and Venus (Jeff Sheetz and Towser from Kansas City)  scored a big catch in the dark that earned them second place in the Men's Division.  So nobody could complain that it was the poor light that made them strike out.

 

The judges tallied the results and worked out the Over-All Championship Points aided by a truck's headlights.  After a double and triple check we announced the first ever Arkansas State Disc Dog Champion.  All the competitors that remained certainly completed all 26.2 miles of this Skyhoundz Disc Dogathon.  Way to go!

 

Congratulations to Pam Martin and Viva the first ever Arkansas Disc Dog State Champion.

 

We hope to see you all again soon.  Until then, go have fun with your dog.

 

Event Director:  Matt Srum, NWA K9 Disc Club

Head Judges:  Tracy and Adrian Custer

 

 

 

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