The Portland Tail Blazers is a flyball club located in Portland, OR. Founded in 2006 by Greta Kaplan and Carol Helfer, our team is a member of Region 7 (BC-OR-WA) of the North American Flyball Association (NAFA). We also belong to United Flyball League International (U-FLI). We participate in tournaments and fun matches in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Sometimes we also do flyball demonstrations in the community or at Portland Trailblazers games. Most of us live in the greater Portland metropolitan area, and we practice at Dog Days Dog Training in Vancouver WA. 

 

We offer Beginning Flyball Classes to suitable dogs and their handlers. Our goal for flyball training is to recruit new members and their dogs.    We invite prospective members  to visit one of our classes and practice, to learn if flyball is for their dog - and if they are interested joining a team, once their dog learns the basics of the sport.

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If you join the Tail Blazers, you make a commitment to your team to be there for practices and to attend tournaments to help out, even if your dog isn’t racing yet.  Flyball is a TEAM sport, from the beginning of training to racing for points and titles - and sometimes to hosting a fun match tournament.  In any given race, there are four dogs with their four handlers, a box loader, and a ball shagger.  If the team is large enough, there may also be a member calling passes and someone else recording each dog’s racing times.  

 

We travel out of the area four or five times a year to tournaments far enough away that a road trip is required, for example, to Monroe and Bremerton WA, the suburbs of Vancouver, BC, Canada, or Bend OR.  These involve a couple of nights in motels or your tent or RV if you prefer. Several tournaments each year are close enough to Portland that an overnight stay isn't necessary -  nearby towns like Salem or Rickreal, OR, or Ridgefield, WA.