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Flyball Box |
Our Box
Our box has three holes - 2 regular holes near the edges and a smaller lower hole in the centre for the mini-balls (the quest for a perfect box never ends!).
Hole Spacing
We watched teams with 2-hole boxes prior to ordering ours and we decided on having the regular holes spaced equally across the face. (approximate location is 8 inches of mat - a hole - 8 inches of mat - a hole - 8 inches of mat ). We thought that boxes that had the holes too close to the edge only worked with long-backed dogs and forced most dogs to go wide from the box to jump #4. The mini-ball hole is in the center and lower than the regular ones.
Boxes that had holes close to the centre did not solve the problem of shoulder jarring and did not help with a swimmer's turns.
Matting
The matting on the boxes are fatigue matting that can be purchased from office supply companies. They come in large rectangles (36 x 48). Office Supply and Business Depot have them. Make sure that the ribbing is vertical to assist the dog's push when the surface gets slimy (I box load and can't believe the amount of saliva some of our dogs produce).
Ball sticking out of hole
Most division 1 teams in our region now use a lever to set the trigger. The holes on the box are drilled to be smaller than the diameter of the ball (this causes the ball to stick out from the surface of the matting.) The boxes are still legal in that the ball still goes the required 24" but it is impossible to stuff the ball into the hole and set the trigger (thus the need for a lever).
Matting on box getting chewed
If the matting below the hole is getting chewed up, then the ball is not coming out fast enough for some dogs. We vidoed the catch and discovered that a few of our dogs were grabbing the matting because the ball was too slow coming out.
Dimensions
Boxes manufactured or purchased after January 1, 1991,shall not exceed 24 inches in width, nor 18 inches in height, nor 30 inches in depth. The dimensions include the throwing arm, but do not include any platform the box loader uses to hold the box in place.
Note:
Teams who have actually kept data feel that the optimal hole height is around 13" - 14".