2021 Spring Season Patch

Description

2021 Spring Season

Dog: Zane (2004 – 2021)
Border Collie of Barbara Reinhold, Detroit, Michigan

Champ: Davidson, Michigan

Complete Season Results

2021 Spring Season Toss & Fetch League Commemorative Patch

A FRISBEE-LOVING RESCUE
LEAVES A LEGACY OF LOVE &
HUGE IMPACT ON OUR SPORT

It’s not always the top dogs, the athletic, super frisbee canine athletes that make biggest impact within our sport. Sometimes it’s a special one who leads the way – one’ who’s perhaps older and slower, and on the brink of being euthanized in a shelter.

This is the case of Zane, a middle-aged border collie rescued at the last minute by Detroit Captain Barbara Reinhold eight years ago who we pay tribute to on the K9 Frisbee Toss & Fetch Worldwide League Spring 2021 Season patch.

Zane was at the end of his allotted time in the Lucas County, Ohio Animal Shelter and the shelter was desperate to find him a rescue. They’d used him to train their local prison when starting their prison inmate program and knew what a good dog he could be for the right family. They called rescue group Barbara fostered for, and Barbara went down to evaluate him.

Zane smelled horrible, his teeth were in bad shape, he peed on everything and had severe scarring from flea infestation. While he looked terrible, he was a delightful, happy dog and Barbara fell in love with that spark in his eyes. She pulled him that day.

Zane became the Reinhold’s 7th foster dog. A vet estimated him to be 7-9 years old, so Barbara picked 7. She had no intention of keeping him until a month later when the rescue called that they had an adopter. Barbara’s heart sank. She couldn’t let him go. He was her dog and she adopted him. That day, he started giving Barbara kisses (and the boys too). He always knew.

Barb wanted to give back to the community, so Zane and she became a therapy team, visiting the patients at the local Detroit VA Hospital, and interacting with kids at her son’s elementary school. Zane loved his jobs and he also love playing back-yard Frisbee.

Zane was the frisbee dog that little kids played with while Barb was scorekeeper for her son’s baseball games. In between innings, he would play frisbee. It was great fun for everyone, and Zane was in every team photo as the official team mascot.

It was Zane who started Barb in her disc dogging journey although he was already 11 years old when she started to compete. Even though he was too old to be competitive, they made a great team and Zane accumulated a fair share of trophies and ribbons.

According to Barbara’s husband, Mark, “For a dog that had just hours left to live, he developed an incredible resume in the disc dog world and as a therapy dog. His gentleness was key in helping us with fostering 47 of our foster dogs. He favored the females and loved to get the males to run and chase him in the yard. Most of all, he loved playing Frisbee.”

It was Zane’s love for the game that inspired Barbara to train her other dogs to embark on her disc dogging journey. Four years ago, she founded the Motor City Disc Dog Club to represent Detroit in our Toss & Fetch Worldwide League and host other events. Today, she’s a multi-time world championship qualifier and consistently handles some of top Expert Teams in the League.

Barb and Zane played their last K9 Frisbee Toss and Fetch League Season in the Fall of 2020, and a couple weeks later he gently passed at the ripe old age of 15, or 16, or 17 (we’ll never know). Here’s Zane & Barbara’s League Team profile:

https://tabsoft.co/3vars23

So, that’s the story of how an abandoned, flea-bitten, past-their-prime, rescue dog, saved by a loving family, can make such a huge impact on the incredible sport of K9 Frisbee.