More than 300 dogs and their owners will gather at the York Expo Center this Saturday and Sunday for the Clean Break Howlin Homecoming Flyball Fest, a tournament featuring the growing dog sport of flyball.
Races will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. Admission is free.
The tournament is hosted by Clean Break, a local team, and will include more than 50 teams from Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey.
Flyball is a timed, team dog sport that consists of a drag style relay race run by two teams of four dogs.
The dogs run a 51-foot course over four jumps and hit a spring-loaded box to release a ball. The ball is caught and carried back across the jumps to the finish line, where the next dog begins.
Each team is comprised of up to six dogs of any breed. Teams are divided into divisions and race against other teams with similar times. Timing is calculated to thousandths of a second.
Intensive training for both dogs and owners is required to compete in the sport, according to the North American Flyball Association, and it promotes healthy exercise for both dogs and owners.
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