The gym at the Kodiak Baptist Mission rang with the sounds of barks, yips, and human voices on April 14. It was the final day of lessons for Rusty, Delilah, Huey, and seven other dogs of all shapes and sizes who took part in Kodiak’s first ever flyball club.
This final hour-long session was the capper on a four-week series led by Kristen McCormack. She owns Kodiak Good Dog, a dog training company. Over the course of a month, McCormack taught ten dogs and their owners the basics of flyball. She said the classes are a great way to exercise the dogs' minds and bodies.
“The funny thing is, it's not just the physical," she said. "What really wears dogs out is when they're having to think and problem solve, and all of this is like, very physical, very stimulating, and they're having to think, right?"
The high energy sport is basically a canine relay race. Two teams of four dogs race one by one over a series of jumps, grab a tennis ball from a spring-loaded box, and then sprint back over those jumps to tag in a new dog. The four dog team that completes the race in the fastest time wins.
The sport is huge in the dog world; teams travel across the world to compete, and it gets a lot of attention at big dog shows like Westminster and Crufts. But in Alaska, there are just three registered places to learn flyball, and they’re all located in Anchorage.
Most people taking the flyball class in Kodiak weren't there to become professionals. For Dave Knight, he said it’s a way to teach his dog Rusty some transferable skills.
“He does like to hunt ducks, so all the commands are good for that," he said.
But some of the dogs–and their owners–have really gotten into it. Loren Featherston said she has a practice flyball set up for her corgi Huey at home.
"This pride you feel, like, is this what parents feel like for their kids? I'm so stoked when he gets it," she said.
The lessons aren’t just a good learning opportunity for the students. According to the instructor McCormack, her classes are also meant to help train her own dog, a border collie named Sunny. When McCormack first got Sunny, there wasn’t a dog trainer in Kodiak. So she watched lots of YouTube videos and trained Sunny herself.
“Enough times it happened, where someone was like, you know, can you give me some tips?" she said. "So I thought, ‘I think I could do this as a side gig and just try it out.’”
By the end of McCormack’s fourth and final training class, some of the dogs–like a tiny village dog named Will–were able to do the entire flyball course. And they even tried out their first relay.
McCormack said there’s been enough interest to keep the local flyball club going, and her roster is full for the next series. But eventually, she hopes more Kodiak dog owners give it a try, even if it’s just to tire out their furry companions at the end of the day.
