History
Flyball started as a dog sport in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in Southern California. Some dog trainers combined scent hurdle racing with the dogs bringing back a tennis ball to the finish line. Then a tennis ball-launching apparatus was added and the first flyball box was born. Herbert Wagner is credited with making the first real flyball box, and he also demonstrated flyball on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
The first Flyball tournament was held in 1983 in the USA.
Flyball has now expanded into many countries including Australia, Canada and South Africa, and in Europe countries such as Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria and the United Kingdom have National flyball tournaments and also hold joint annual European championships.
The European championships which are the largest international Flyball championships were held in the United Kingdom in 2007 the Czech Republic in 2008, Belgium in 2009 and 2010 and Germany in 2011. They are due to be held again in the United Kingdom in 2012
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