Flyball got its start in the late 1960's and early 1970's, when a group of dog trainers in Southern California created scent discrimination hurdle racing, then put a guy at the end to throw tennis balls to the dogs when they finished the jump line. It didn't take long for the group to decide to build some sort of tennis ball-launching apparatus, and the first flyball box was born. Herbert Wagner is credited with developing the first flyball box, and apparently he did a flyball demo on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson that got a lot of peoples attention.

Subsequently, this new dog sport was introduced in the Toronto-Detroit area by several dog training clubs. After a few small tournaments were held in conjunction with dog shows, the first ever flyball tournament was held in 1983.

      Specs

      In Flyball, there is a team of 4 dogs. They each run the full course, which is 51 feet in length. On the course, there are 4 jumps that the dogs will have to jump over. Each of the jumps are 10 feet apart, the first jump starting 6 feet from the starting line and the last jump is 15 feet from the box.

Image taken from: http://www.decaturdaily.com

      Each of the 4 dogs are part of the relay team. After one dog crosses back over the starting line, the next dog is allowed to go. Once all 4 dogs have successfully completed the race, their time stops.

      Successfully is definitely the key word. If a dog misses a jump, drops the ball, or a variety of other items, the dog will need to run the race again (but not the whole team). This will penalize the team's total time though, thus making it less likely for them to win. Currently, based on information from NAFA's site, the world record time is 15.22 seconds. This means that each of the dogs on the team completed their portion of the course in under 4 seconds! Average times are in the 20 second range, meaning that the dogs complete the course in roughly 5+ seconds.