A number of different images come to mind when people hear the term UFO, like enormous black triangles, luminous cigar-shaped ships, and of course discs. Once you become a fan of one of the most joyous sports on earth, however, the disc you’ll think about when you hear the term UFO will be plastic, and it will be flying through the air in the mouth of a dog.
From 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, a group known as UFO will be holding a contest in which dogs can win UFO World Cup points by spectacularly catching Frisbee-style discs thrown by their handlers. Nobody can apparently remember exactly how the group got the name UFO, but that doesn’t seem to bother them.
The contest takes place along the Riverwalk behind the VFW Hall and is free to spectators. The teams with the highest number of points for the year will be invited to the championships in Los Angeles, which take place in October.
There are actually two separate contests on this Last Fling weekend. On Saturday, at the same location, The Ashley Whippet Invitational World Championship Qualifier disc dog competition was set to be held. The top four teams in this event will also be invited to Los Angeles, where they will compete in a competition against teams from all over the world.
In case you’re curious, Ashley was the name of a remarkable 3-year-old whippet that was smuggled into Dodger Stadium on a warm summer night in 1974. Ashley’s owner, a young college student named Alex Stein, had fed his 3-week-old puppy from a Frisbee and then taught him to retrieve it. Seeking publicity, he brought Ashley onto the field, where the dog put on a sensational display of catching discs.
The show was so good that the game was halted for eight minutes while Ashley leaped and soared, and former Cardinals (and Cubs) catcher Joe Garagiola continued to announce the dog’s performance on the field. Even though the crowd, and the television audience, loved it, Alex Stein was arrested and fined $250. A boy in the audience lured the dog off the field and took Ashley home to Long Beach. Alex eventually got his dog back, and a star had been born.
In the mid-1970s, Ashley won the first three Frisbee Dog World Championships, which were later named after him. You can see a clip from the 1977 dog disc movie “Floating Free” on YouTube. It’s named “Ashley and Friends.”
Although whippets seem ideally built for the sport, it’s clear that virtually any breed of dog, if they are sufficiently enthusiastic about catching discs, can participate. In fact, some of the best performances, I think, have been by dogs that you wouldn’t think are constructed for it. The great thing is that the dog couldn’t care less about what anybody thinks. For them, it’s all about desire.
I don’t usually attend things on Last Fling weekend. First of all, it’s not necessarily the last fling of summer unless you want it to be. Summer is officially over Sept. 21 or, for some of us, whenever the White Sox have to stop playing. Why would you ever want summer to be over?
But for sheer exuberance and delight, nothing beats these dog disc events. You get to watch dogs in the prime of their lives, with lightning-fast reflexes and astounding running speed, doing something that they absolutely love and, frankly, showing off a little. Their enthusiasm is catching.
So, no matter how your life is going, your spirits will be lifted, and the world will seem like a better place. Maybe it’s the fact that dog disc spectators are some of the nicest people in the world, or the fact that the dogs are having so much fun, but it’s impossible to be sad when you’re watching dogs catch discs.
Bill Mego is a freelance columnist for the Naperville Sun.