March 28, 2004

REMEMBER that time I wrote about Frisbee golf? Yes, it was real, not just a nightmare. Well now I’ve found an even greater use for flying discs, and it’s not got anything to do with ninjas, oh no.

Take a dog. Teach it how to jump. Then chuck a Frisbee in its general direction and you have the US Disc Dog National Championship Series (discdog.org).

Yes, my little bowls of Angel Delight, someone somewhere has decided to make this into a sport, complete with a national association. Actually, to be fair to Dog Discing (as I’ve just decided to call it) someone somewhere thought the same of cricket, except they were wrong.

This is another one of those sports I stumble across thinking, "What the hell is this?" and end up liking. For starters it looks like fun, it makes for some pretty spectacular pictures, and has the advantage of letting the local police know that all the nutters will be down the park on any given day.

Dog Discing (I think I’m going to trademark that) has been around for a while, but the USDDN was formed just four years ago to bring together as many teams from around the USA as possible and organise a national championship. Amazingly, for the first time in history the Americans haven’t displayed their usual audacity and named something the "world championship" even though they’re the only ones in it, and for that simple matter I’d like to thank the USDDN. Now if only Major League Rounders... er, I mean Baseball, would have the same modesty.

So how do you play Dog Discing™? Apparently it takes years of training, and that’s just learning to throw the Frisbee in a straight line. Then there’s the dog training, getting the little blighter to jump up and catch the disc without missing and seizing young children by the throat (although frankly I’d pay to see that one).

To give an idea of its popularity, the last round of qualifiers in Atlanta attracted 165 teams from 14 states, which is nearly the world by American standards. Does this kind of thing go on over here, or have local councils bylawed it out of existence?