Judging some dogs...

So I have been terribly horrible about updating the blog... I just haven't done it.  So in between my last post and this one, we have had tons of shows, an indoor weekend at WODAC (World of Dogs and Cats), some training for AWC, a weekend in Bloemfontein, a ton of ups and downs... but that is not what I am going to be blogging about today...

I am going to be writing about judging... yes, remember, I am still an agility judge too, I also 'almost' forgot... since I haven't judged in a year!  But in the past three weeks, I had some judging appointments.  It is very hard being a competitor and a judge, I really do enjoy judging, but if I HAD to choose, I will always rather compete.  Can't do both at the same time now, can I?

Why do I judge?  Well definitely not for the fame... or the infamy.  Around here judges don't get paid, so it can't be that.  Agility judges has an absolutely unique role, compared to any other judge/adjudicator/referee/umpire in any other sport. In most sports, with the exception of Show Jumping (but I will get to that), the sole purpose of the judge is to... well do just that... JUDGE that all the players/competitors are following the rules.  In Agility, the judge has one (very HUGE) extra responsibility... the judge actually sets the challenge within which the rules need to be followed.  Unlike athletics, soccer, triathlon, rowing, fencing, weightlifting, where the competitors will always perform the same task.  And also unlike gymnastics, synchronised swimming, competitive dancing, freestyle dressage, where the competitor has guidelines, but still their choice of routine.  In Agility and Show Jumping, the judge sets the actual challenge and chooses the skills which they want to test.  And the complexity of this challenge in Agility is much higher than in Show Jumping, where striding (collection and extension) forms the major part of the test.

The options available to an Agility judge is basically infinite, which is why we don't have to wash/rinse/repeat courses week after week.  So back to the question of why I judge... I like being part of this unique relationship with Agility competitors, I like setting challenges and seeing handlers and dogs succeed.  I believe that judges have a huge responsibility to the growth and improvement of Agility.  How many times have you struggled with a section on a course and the very first thing you do when you train again is set that up?  How many new handlers have been discouraged to continue competing in Agility, because the courses are not level appropriate?  Why would we train proper contacts if contact faults were never called?

Judging and designing courses for smaller classes (in smaller countries, like South Africa especially) is especially challenging if you know anything about statistics... it comes down to the simple concept of the less dogs run, the less clear rounds you will get... so if your aim is to have 10% clear rounds... and you only have 10 dogs running, you are only aiming at 1 clear round?  This can be very discouraging for a judge let me tell you.  Having said that though, I also don't believe in 'giving' QC's (Qualifying Certificates or Champ Tickets away) JUST because there are less dogs.  I really believe in having a set standard and sticking to it.  Of course not unreasonable standards (Yes, I also hate walking courses and just going WTF at the end of it), but SOME form of standard.  But I also detest easy courses (with no challenge whatsoever) being set up because the judge just wants loads of clears.... after all Agility is a test of skill AND speed, not just one or the other.

Of course each judge (especially competing judges) have their own preferences and trademarks, regarding everything aspect of course design.  I know some judges that like designing from the start to the finish, others do it in reverse, some judges draw a doodle/course path first and then put in obstacles (I always find this one a bit odd).  Personally I normally have one specific sequence I want to test and design the rest of my course around that.  Some judges always have a hard weave pole entry or tunnels under the contact or a tunnel discrimination where all the tunnel entrances face in the same direction.

Now I have to have a little gripe though, which just by the way I actually try to never do, since I KNOW the challenges and hardships of judging.  In the last while, I have just noticed too many judges not taking their responsibility seriously and it bugs me... it bugs the JUDGE in me more than it bugs the competitor in me.  First of all, being the kind of judge that literally spends hours designing and tweaking my courses, I am very frustrated by judges that re-uses courses week in and week out.  Very sorry to say this, but if you don't have time to design a course, then rather not accept the judging appointment.  Re-using a course a couple of times in different parts of the country/world, that is not an issue, but not even bothering to design a new course for a judging appointment two weeks apart at the same show grounds?  Second issue I have is judges being too lazy to move one jump in between grade changes just moving a number here and there, often making it more difficult for lower grades.  While I do understand that for non-competing judges especially, it is hard to see what could be challenging for lower grades, this does not mean you have to be lazy.  Now given that I am sure it IS possible, I just have to point out that I have never, not once in the 12 years that I have been a judge, have I been able to design a course for grades1, 2 and 3, where I have not had to move at least 2 or 3 obstacles and keep the challenges fair to each grade.  The last while, I have to say the majority of the courses I have run with my grade 3 dogs, have been TOO easy.  That is just a personal issue of course, the judge's design is their design and while we can comment, it is STILL the judge's decision.  However... earning a title should be an achievement, NOT a given.  My next issues are all on the actual judging... number one, the lack of refusal and handling calls, of course all judges make mistakes and then you have to consistently judge the rest of the class in the same manner.  But seeing dog after dog pass every refusal plane on the course or spin 7 times right in front of an obstacle or dogs being shoved around the course with knees, arms and feet is very frustrating.  My last gripe for now involves contact judging.  I am very sorry (and yes I have tested this theory many times, using a video camera to test and prove it), if you live in a country, where you have to judge ALL 6 contact zones (A-Frame, Dogwalk, see-saw/teeter - Up and down), it is physically impossible to ACCURATELY judge all of that while standing dead still in the middle of the course.  And I am not budging on that one.  A friend of mine has very fast 4-on-the-floor contacts (I am talking about a 1.6 second dog walk here) and he constantly gets called on his contacts because the judge is standing a mile away at completely the wrong angle... while photos and videos prove that the dog doesn't just have one toe in, but 2 or 3 feet!  And please understand me, I KNOW how hard contact judging is, I really, really do.  But unless you are standing right there staring a hole into the contact zone, you cannot ASSUME that the dog touched or missed anything.  If you are not physically able to do this, then get yourself an up-contact judge or just don't accept a contact judging appointment.  I actually know of quite a few judges that just leave the dog walk out of a course, because the can't judge it?  Also not right if you ask me.

Okay gripe over and done with.  So just a note to all judges... yes, when judging you have to be strong, deal with a lot of crap and remember you are the JUDGE, but that doesn't mean you can't accept advise and input from people, it definitely doesn't mean you are out there to nail competitors.  It does mean you have a responsibility to the sport and the competitors to do your utter best in every aspect of the sport within the rules which you are judging.  Haha, yes, it really IS a thankless and hard job.

So on to my actual judging... finally.

In Bloemfontein I set up this course for Agility 3:

I am happy with how it ran, I think I handed out 2 QC's on this course, I think our results website is down at the moment, since I can't access it.  I had lots of handling faults between 10 and 11 and a lot of refusals between the dog walk and 18 (not one handler handled this section like I would have).  I also had a lot of screaming between 15 and the dog walk, but very few faults, so not really understanding the screaming.  Due to time constraints and the large entry, I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to run this course with my dogs, but I will definitely be setting it up for training at some stage.  I set the course at 4m/s which is higher than our minimum 3.5m/s speed limit... this DID cause some moans and groans, but I definitely don't think it was unfair.

A week later I was judging both Contact and Non-Contact (Jumping) back in Gauteng.  My contact courses:

This will henceforth be known as the day of 'almosts'... possibly one of the most disappointing judging appointment ever without being disappointed?  There were so many great rounds, that missed out on a signing due to one bar or one missed contact or one mis-calculation.  I got up at cock's fart to set up the course early, so I could run my own dogs on the grade 3 course.  Both of them ran clear well within my course time and I really enjoyed running it... haha and NOT because it is my own course, I promise!

Round of the day goes to Sassy on my grade 3 course with a fantastic round, but only bar 15 falling...  a heart-breaker, but still an awesome round!

On to the jumping, I did get comments that it was 'too much' for one course, while I didn't have the opportunity to run it myself, I really don't feel it was, but of course I can't fairly comment on that.  I DID finally manage to hand out one QC on this course though:

I will definitely be setting up these as well as soon as I have a chance.  On my grade 3 course, the biggest problem by far came from 12-14... either handlers not hanging on to their dogs long enough for the pull-through or handlers managing to pull their dogs through 13-14.  Round of the day goes to Stardust on my grade 1 course.  Super cool to see a handler that has been SO committed and worked SO hard to get it right and get a signing!

That is me over and out til next time ladies and gents.

Speedy Agility and Agility on Paper... (and some mention of Superheroes)

I am about to stick my head into a bee's nest... probably.  I read on of those funny picture thingies on the internet today, which is probably applicable to me... 'Now aren't you just a funfilled lollipop triple dipped in psycho'.  Or maybe I just liked it so much that I felt compelled to post it on my blog...

Anyhow, back to the matters and the bee's nests at hand. And where to start... I guess a good place is the event that re-ignited the idea for the post in my head (please note the RE-ignited part)...  Of late some of the UK Agility followers/competitors/addicts/players/handlers/judges/stalkers/critics/lovers etc, have had a slight spot of a debate regarding The Kennel Club's speed guidelines for the different agility grades.

Now this is not my first 'speed' party.  This discussion, debate and argument have come up many times before, both locally and internationally.  Now first of all, let's keep in mind that the only way to REALLY accurately measure your dog's speed would be to measure your dog's EXACT path for each round... if you are able to do that, it would pretty much make your Superman or Wonder Woman (whatever rocks your boat).  You would have to slow the world down to slow motion (or speed up until you are moving so fast that the dog appears to be moving in slow motion) and spray paint the route of your dog behind their tail.  I suppose you could attach some form of paint behind their tail?

Okay I am getting off topic again... so anyhow, judges all over the world have to measure the 'average path' of the dog.  So in modern agility, where there is better and faster and tighter and more super awesome dogs being born every single day, you tell me what the average path is please?  For example, I am one of the judges that can always hear taunts of 'too tight' and 'my dog is not Elastigirl' or 'no dog can turn that tight'... which ofc are not too true, since my dogs CAN really turn that tight... and so can a million other dogs I know.  BUT (and I have tested this theory)... I can measure a course, the SAME course) to differ by 20m (or more) within apparently 'acceptable' ranges for a majority handlers and judges... now if you take 20m and let's say I would set my course at 5m/s (which quite frankly is FAST and I would be crucified if I tried to set a course at that speed around here)... that would mean a FOUR second difference.  Do you know how much FOUR seconds is in Agility?

To illustrate the point:

So in this scenario with only THREE obstacles, I could potentially make a difference of 1.5m and there for a difference of 1.18 seconds to my Standard Course Time (SCT) if I set my course at 4m/s.  That is over THREE jumps... now imagine that over the whole course???  Sit there, close your eyes and imagine the exact path your dog/s would run on those three jumps...  I have personally seen a judge at the World Champs measure to the centre of a jump and then (instead of measuring the 180 around the wing) turn around right there and measure the path back (does that even make sense to you?).

Anyhow, so my point is, that your 'speed' (okay your DOG'S speed, if only we could run that fast right?), is relevant to the actual measuring.  Sometimes that measuring is pretty damn accurate in my opinion, according to my dogs... you, yes YOU behind the computer screen there, might completely disagree!

Does this mean I am AGAINST set speeds for courses?  Oh quite the contrary!  I am 100% for it... perhaps at this point I should explain (again - so if you have bee a regular reader of this blog for the last few years, you might want to skip this paragraph) our situation.  Agility-wise we are  a SMALL country, very small... so in the past it worked like this... to get a QC or Qualifying Certificate (Champ Ticket (well kind of), point towards your Championship Status, Qualification etc) you had to win with a clear round only if there was a minimum amount of dogs competing... yes, there were 'guideline speeds for judges' (which were hardly ever followed), but there had to be a certain amount of dogs competing.  Then the rules changed... now, even if you are the only dog in the class and you go clear you can win that QC... BUT the judge HAS to use a minimum speed set in the rules (3.5m/s for Agility and 4m/s for jumping... there are no maximum speeds).

Is this an unfair system?  In my opinion, not at ALL... I do feel our minimum speeds are WAY too low and not even close to international standards, but it is certainly not unfair.  We do generally have more than enough large dogs (well in the province where I live in anyway), the problems come in with the small and the medium dogs.... so since that is the case, let's use my own Voltenstein as the example... At the SA Champs, he won both jumping rounds and both times he was faster than the large or medium dogs... so he is not a Slow Sally... if we still had the 'minimum dog' rule in place, he would not have been a champion in Jumping yet... in fact, he would have had only 30% of the QC's that he HAS won this year.  I always run ALL OUT and never play it safe for a 'win', but that is a whole other aspect of the 'speed' argument that I will have to deal with in a separate post...

Is it an accurate system?  Hells NO!  Since there are so many judges and competitors out there that is against this system, measuring is seriously questionable sometimes.  That is for the judges to justify to themselves.

In fact to check out the erm... shall we call them 'differences' in my dogs' recorded speeds for this year, you are welcome to go to:

http://gauteng-agility.co.za/php/results.php

And type in Chaos (dog) and A. Reed (handler) or Volt (dog) and A. Reed (handler) in the search options... now ofc not all of them were 'good' clears, but you will certainly get an idea in the discrepancies in my boys' so-called 'speeds'...

My point is, that you can argue all you want and you can try to make the exact science from it all you want, but using the 'speeds' derived from running agility competitions is NOT an accurate way to judge YOURSELF and YOUR DOG.  Are these speeds necessary as a part of our sport? Oh definitely, we could not live without them!  But it is not the be-all and the end-all... so when you see your super duper awesomeness fast doggy running at 'apparently' 2.5m/s... don't have a heart attack or contemplate suicide (in both cases you would not be able to run your super duper awesomeness fast doggy again, which would really suck).  So ladies and gents, let's take it all into consideration and think of the bigger picture...

All pictures courtesy of Melissa Wilson.

The Value of Little Things...

WTF Chaos, does your tongue not turn with your body?

Before I start, the theme of tonight's photos are WTF...

Life goes on... REALLY?  It is amazing how much I invested in one little weekend, one little dream of making the team.  The crash afterwards, before the preparation for the World Champs start, was not pleasant... well that is putting it mildly.  My dogs, just by the way, don't like breaks... and YOU try explaining to them they actually need a rest now and again.  They were driving me absolutely nuts and offering the most insane behaviours to try and get me to do something with them.  Apparently walks and playing with the ball is just not good enough.  Oops, I think I might have created workaholic dogs?

We have had a few shows since my last post, some ups and downs and good and bad... the boys are keeping their stats up, got some clears, but you could see that we had not been training.  I was sloppy, out of place, oh hat and the TIMING... *bows head in shame*.  I will make a compilation at some point in time, but I have other things on my mind first...  actually I have LOTS of other things on my mind.  It is one of those times that I could write 70 blog posts one after the other, but then I am pretty sure all of you would click the 'unsuscribe button' before I get to the 5th one.  So I will just start off with this one...

WTF are you looking at Stein?

I started Agility like most people... absolutely clueless.  I did what I was told to do.  Training was different then, I would say that you 'taught' your dog to do each obstacle, but I would be lying.  You basically put your dog on lead and by way of repetition, the poor dogs eventually got the idea of what they were supposed to be doing... well kind of and in most cases.  Once they had the basic idea, some dude or dudette that was the 'trainer' would stick up a course and off you go.  That was training.  So my first dogs all thought 'training=running full course'.  Also while my first dogs didn't do too badly and got around courses, I can honestly say 'my first dogs = sucky (actual) Agility skills.'

Now while I won't deny the obvious advantage of occasionally training full courses, and while I assure you that part of my preparation for the World Champs will definitely involve training some of the judges's courses, I do think that a very large percentage of Agility handlers under-estimate the value of training 'little (oh so big)' things. And definitely over-estimate the value of training full courses the wrong way.  Want to know when Volt ran a full course for the first time?  Erm, well at his first show... Want to know how many full courses Volt has run since then?  I don't know, how many shows have we had?  He has had one actual training session on a full course.

WTF is that expression Spaz?

I believe in training skills, as in one skill at a time.  That is after all what a course is... a load of small individual skills, stringed together.  I have witnessed so many training session on full courses, where said handler and dog, would 'get around' and keep going, but not get one actual part right (I am a bit of a perfectionist, when I say get it 'right').  I have seen handlers struggling and struggling with one small aspect (let's call it a pole entry), eventually get it right and then... *shakes head in frustration*, because there IS a 'rest of the course' they will go on, instead of rewarding.

Get those one or two jumps that you have at home out in the garden ladies and gents!  Absolutely endless skills you can teach, without running a full course!

WTF is up with all that drool Spaz?

Another example of a little thing that can make a HUGE difference is that of... you guessed it... the verbal marker!  And that one is pretty useful WHILE training a full course, just by the by.  Scenario:  Alett stands next to show ring, handler Thingamabob runs, Thingamabob's dog misses the pole entry... then misses the pole entry again... and again... and another time (by this point Thingamabob is normally whispering threats of starvation and 'free to good home' under their breath), each missed entry is followed by a 'naughty' or a 'are you stupid'... wait Thingamabob's dog misses the entry yet again (at this point Alett looks away, cos she can't take it anymore).  When Alett looks back, the dog misses ANOTHER entry... But then, all of a sudden, pigs fly and clouds are made of cotton candy and Thingamabob's dog actually GETS the entry... so what does Thingamabob say at this point in time... NOTHING and then to make it worse, they just continue running the course (or normally attempting to, since Thingamabob's dog's brain is fried from missing 13 pole entries in a row)... so poor Thingamabob's dog has no clue that it was now RIGHT, correcto mundo, successful, on the spot, got an A...

Verbal markers are absolutely wonderful things ladies and gents, it's something that dog's VERY quickly learn to understand if you just USE them...

My point being, look for the little things in Agility, they are what maketh the dog and the handler and the course and the game and the everything...  A little thing is what will win it or lose it!

WTF was I doing? Javelin?

We did it? Really?

I am back from my 'happy world place', where I have lived for the last two weeks... it involved lots of motivating conversations with myself, music and moments where I just tried to clear my mind.  So before I get into all the boring stuff, let me kill the suspense...  Both the Spaz AND the Stein will be travelling (and me too, I guess) to the Czech Republic in October as part of Team South Africa!  Yup, we made the team, the boys (as always) were awesome and I kept it together enough to secure my spot.

The weekend was one of ups and downs (well they FELT like downs, even though they weren't REALLY).  I left in the pitch darkness on Thursday morning to Pietermaritzburg... my favourite time to drive.  No I am not kidding, I am a bit weird, I really like driving in the dark.  The boys apparently too, since they just slept through the blaring music and my very tone-deaf attempt at singing along.  Soon it was clear what my 'power song' for the weekend would be... you know that feeling, when you just can't stop repeating a song?  Friend J tried to mess with this, by BBM'ing me another very catchy (and currently favourite song), but my song won in the end.  And no I am not going to tell you what the song is, because I made my SA Champs video to it, I would rather force you to watch that...

We were staying at a lovely guestfarm and I was lucky enough to stay with friends that understands the meaning of 'head space', and would cope with me being a raging b**** if need be (turned out it didn't 'need be', but was good to know regardless).  Took the dogs for a bit of a stroll and very glad that M took some pictures to prove that both boys were actually REALLY clean at the start of the weekend.

On the way to the practise session, I decided to test how well my fellow competitors could 'correct an almost off course' on the road.  I am happy to report that everyone aced the test (although I apparently DID give N hot flushes with that move).  I think they may have lost some faith in my navigational skills though.  One minute to practise seemed A LOT shorter than previous years.  This might have something to do with the fact that the see saw was REALLY REALLY heavy (especially for a 4.5kg Sheltie, who could finish a nice cup of tea waiting for it to drop).  So that took up like half your minute?  Or maybe my brain was just in fast forward mode, while my body was stuck in real time?

After the practise session we went home for a quiet and very civilized dinner, which for me is quite odd I suppose, normality is not something I see a lot of.  I guess the stakes were sinking in.  Friday morning started with another long walk for the boys.  They had an absolute ball, two farm dogs and a Sheltie tearing across the field like hooligans, they really couldn't give a damn about what was at stake, although sometimes we really expect them to, don't we?  They were more like 'Dude I am so going to run faster than you' 'No dude, you are so not going to beat me', followed by a Sheltie 'Wait up for me you buggers, my legs are like 3 times shorter than yours'.  Ah if only life could be that simple hey?

Most of the competition is a bit of a blur, probably because I spent a lot of time sleeping in my chair.  I am still not exactly sure how I managed to do that, but hey, who cares it worked.  See when you have friends that kind of deal with everything else for you (like results and draw orders and filming and all those pesky little things), it is pretty doable to get your head in the game so much that you can actually fall asleep at very noisy, very public showgrounds, pretty much right next to the speakers.  I am not going to go into each round in major detail, I mean if you think you are bored now, just imagine how bored you would be if I did that?

Chaos had some disappointing knocks.  I mean really?  The one thing I have not been worried about... in fact they kept him from being in the medals for the SA Champs too.  He clocked some phenomenal times I have to say.  However the bars just weren't staying up... well not as much as I would have liked anyway.  In fact, since I hadn't looked at the points once through the entire weekend, I walked off after the last round absolutely convinced that we just hadn't been good enough!  I was absolutely broken and couldn't understand why people came over to congratulate me. In fact I argued with the congratulators (Sorry, congratulators) and only when friend J went over to check the actual results and confirmed that YES, I HAD made the team would I stop pacing like an hysterical chicken on LSD.  I don't know what the other dogs did, because I didn't really watch any of the other dogs.  In fact, the whole weekend I can honestly say there are only two dogs that I DID watch.  Not because I am a super-sucky friend and not because I didn't WANT to watch, but I knew from the beginning if I was going to do this, the weekend would be all about me.

Now that it is all over and done with and I have watched myself about a million times over, I can definitely say I am proud of the fact that I RAN.  Oh hell yeah baby, I ran my little heart out.  There was no playing safe, no doubting my dogs, no doubting myself, I really did ATTACK.  It felt pretty damned good and I think I am going to try this whole attack thing on a permanent basis.



I am especially happy with the little Steiner Weiner.  Stein won both Non-Contact (Jumping) rounds, not only did he win the Small category, in both rounds he clocked the fastest time of all heights and all dogs... eat your heart out Border Collies, watch out for the Sheltie Machine.  Considering he is still 3 months away from his second birthday, I could not be more happy with how he handled his first real 'big event'.  Seriously, nothing can phase that dog.

So Chaos will be running in both individual and team and Volt will be running in the Small Team.  Go go Team South Africa!

The boys will be getting a two week break from training and then the slow build-up towards the AWC will start... me?  I will be getting no break.  As you may imagine, a trip like this, travelling halfway across the world to go and run some Agility courses, costs a pretty penny and other than a small discount on the dog flights, each handler has to cover their own costs.  So I will be working my pretty little behind off over the next few months.  I am sure it will be worth it though.

So there you go, we did it, we really did it!

All photographs courtesy of Melissa Wilson.

Where's YOUR head at?

Last weekend (what happened to this week?!?! ) we were off to Durban for a weekend of (very slow) agility shows.  This weekend has always been a big deal to some people, especially seeing as it is normally 2 weeks before SA Champs, so most of us use it as dress rehearsal.  You have to remember that our SA Champs is also our World Team Try Outs, so a pretty big deal you see.  The problem with this Durban weekend, is that it CAN be a maker or a breaker.  Well if your mind is not right.  If your head is not there.

At the end of the day, it is JUST a dress rehearsal, nothing more, nothing less.  If you happen to make a mistake somewhere in the weekend, the secret is not getting all hung up on it.  I have seen it time and time again.  People have a bad round or two and the whole machine just falls apart.  Luckily for me, there was falling, but no falling apart...

My weekend started of rather fun... with Chaos ankle-tapping me, see he was 100% convinced that we were on our way to the poles.  I was convinced we were going to the jump next to the poles.  And if you have any knowledge of physics, you will know that it is a physical impossibility for two objects to occupy the same space at the same time.  So I went flying.  My fall started at the beginning of the poles and almost made it right to the end.  It was friggin hilarious.  AND to make it even better, I managed to get up and clear the rest of the course.  Now I wasn't the only one to have a 'moment' over the weekend (although I DEFINITELY win the first prize), so I decided to make a video diary of the moments... please enjoy.  And I promise that I give you permission to laugh and other than a few bruises (including some bruised ribs), I am fine, so laughing is in order.



Now wipe the tears of laughter from your face and FOCUS again.  Do you know how good this was for me two weeks before the SA Champs?  It was BRILLIANT!  Because now I have confidence I can recover from anything, any mishap and still get it RIGHT.  Considering our qualifying system that definitely favours consistency over brilliance, this is the best confidence booster I could get.

All in all my dogs worked very well throughout the weekend.  I am in such a good place right now, where I can trust my dogs and I know I can walk out on any course out there and get around it.  I finally know what the words 'quiet confidence' means, how cool is that.  Of course SA Champs will be a completely different story, with added nerves, much bigger stakes and all of those wonderful things.  But I will be living in my own little happy place for the next 10 days, so until then, cheers!

Business, Bumper and Broken

I have to admit, I am a little bit broken at this point in time.  I know that it has been AGES since I blogged, but in my defense, I have been insanely busy as part of the organising committee of a HUGE Agility Weekend.  Well huge for South Africa.  All in all I think it went well enough, but that doesn't mean I am any less broken from the hard work this weekend.  Apparently it works for me though, because I did pretty well all things considering.  And by all things I mean the constant running around, building courses, organising food for judges, doing results, catalogues, catalogue numbers, answering queries, moving entries etc etc etc.  I do have some good news though, for the first time since Sunday I can move my legs without suppressing  screams of pain and I also don't think the back transplant is THAT urgent any more.

So now I will stop the b!tching and moaning and get on with writing about my dogs.  Stupidly I set down quite specific goals for the weekend, not THINKING how hard I would be working.  Lucky for me, I have pretty damn awesome dogs, that not only compensate for my stupidity, but actually exceed my set goals.

I wanted to up my consistency rate with Chaos, which I can safely say we did.  A few of the rounds were not our best, mainly because I rushed walking the course and had to walk for two dogs, which I am not used to.  His A-Frame is less solid than I would like, as in if I am ahead of him he self releases, I threw a couple of rounds to start correcting that, in fact, we will be throwing all our contact rounds until SA Champs if need be.  His dog walks and see saws looked quite good the whole weekend.  Chaos managed to win 6 QC's this weekend, with a few almost rounds as well.  As you can imagine, a lot of his rounds did not get video'd this weekend... with all of my normal camera people running around like mad.  In fact we are thinking of hiring a permanent camera person :)  Anyhow here is a short (and by short I mean long) compilation of Chaos's high's and lows this past weekend.



Now on Sir Volt of the Awesomeness as he is now known.  My goal with Volt this past weekend was NOT very well thought through.  First of all I wanted to make him up into a Dog Jumping Champion and I needed two QC's for that.  Clever monkey did that in his first two tries, by winning the first two Dog Jumping rounds.  Then he went on to win 3 more Dog Jumping Classes to take 5/6 Dog Jumping QC's available in his grade.  My other goal was to qualify him up into Grade 3 Agility and Non Contact.  Which is all cool and well and which of course Volt did at the beginning of the weekend too.  The problem with that goal, was that once he was in Grade 3... what now?  It didn't occur to me that Volt is not ready for Grade 3 courses yet (or this is what I thought).  I had to make some desperate handling plans, doing front crosses where I should have pulled, crossing behind in the weirdest places, occasionally jumping over Volt to avoid life-threatening collisions.  But we did it.  Not only did Volt meet my goals, but he also earned his first Contact Agility QC's AND earn three Non Contact Agility QC's to become a champion in just two days!  As you will see from the videos, it wasn't always pretty and me and Volt have TONS of training to do now, to prepare ourselves better for technical courses.  Oh yes and note to self, watch sales, need new pair of MUCH faster legs for small dog.  Here is a short (and by short I mean even longer than Chaos's video) compilation of Volt's rounds for the weekend:



Some notes on the weekend.  I liked the balance of courses of the weekend.  I think we could have done with some more technical courses, but all in all a good balance.  I think I should have been called on a lot more refusals, especially with Volt.  In fact I saw a lot of spins that I would have definitely called as a judge. My general rule is that if the dog was in the position to take the obstacle, and then spins it should be called.  All of these spins were my error of course, but should still have been refusals.  Contact judging was pretty good, but I should have been called for one fly-off which wasn't.  The refusal issue is one that have come up so many times amongst handlers and judges around here and it really does make me think it needs clarification.

All in all a good weekend and just four more weeks to go before SA Champs... bring on the finals baby!

F***ing Tire Jumps, PE Weekend and School Fees

Okay so at the end of 'two posts ago' I left you with a video of two of my friends's dogs having bad tire crashes.  On top of that I have been bitching and moaning to everyone that will listen, that I HATE the tire jump.  As a judge I will not put the obstacle in unless the collapsible tire jump is available.  As a competitor, I have withdrawn my dogs if I felt the judge REALLY got the angle wrong.  I guess with all this bitching and moaning I was asking the universe to slap fate on me.  This past weekend, Chaos had a bad, bad, bad tire crash... Bad I tell you!  I hope all judges and competitors alike watch this video and THINK twice before using the obstacle:



But miracles prevailed and Chaos is 100% fine, other than a small scrape on his face.  No stiffness or soreness.  He still has all four legs, one neck, one back and one tail, two shoulders and a skull.  How lucky am I?  Having said all of that, I DO train the tire (I have one in my backyard) to try and prevent accidents like this.  I train it regularly.  Now Chaos is an experienced dog, he has jumped a million different tires under varying conditions.  Chaos also makes mistakes sometimes, now if those mistakes lead to refusals, or knocked bars, I can accept that.  But when a mistake (like Mr. Spastic trying bounce that distance), can lead to a broken back, shattered skull, dislocated body, decapitation, maiming, amputation, castration or any other -ation, then I really feel it is NOT on.

Okay that vent out of the way, I can get on to the weekend...

So Thursday we left at 2am (which ofc meant no sleep for me, as that is normally bed time) to travel the 1000km odd to Port Elizabeth.  We arrived early afternoon and I was lucky enough to arrange some training with friends.

I had several goals for the weekend.  I really wanted to put some pressure on myself with Chaos.  The whole mental game and big match temperament thing has never been my strong point and I figured this would be a good test run for the SA Champs in June.  Chaos was working very nicely, except for one super wild round (still think someone fed him rocket fuel and ritalin before that round) and one super knocky round (FOUR bars? Chaos?  REALLY? FOUR BARS?  In ONE round?).  He managed to win 4 Qualifying Certificates (Champ tickets), which is pretty cool and had some other good placings too.  Biggest news of course being that he is now a triple champion in Agility, Jumping and Dog Jumping.  Inevitably I made some handling mistakes and some errors in judgement, but all in all I am happy.  His times were good, his jumping was good and his contacts were mostly good.  Definitely his best result yet for a weekend of shows.  I am hoping to slowly build up to SA Champs.  Due to rain, laziness and being slightly scatter-brained, I ended up not getting too many rounds on video, but here are two of Chaos's QC rounds:





This was (well supposed to be) a school fees trip for Volt.  His first time competing at a really different venue and different equipment and weather and long travel etc.  I just wanted to see how he copes with it.  But as per the usual Volt scoffed in the face of a challenge.  He is determined to prove to me that he can handle anything apparently.  Of course there were some young dog mistakes, like the rounds where Volt could only count to 10 in the weave poles, some missed entries, Volt's FIRST EVER knock in a competition, an overshoot on the A-Frame which was quickly followed by a handstand reverse as only Volt can do it... you know little things like that.  But considering Volt is 19 months old and has been competing less than a month, I think his over-all results were pretty damn good.  He had 6 qualifications in total (4 in Agility and 2 in Jumping), managed to win the Small Dog Over-All (Grade 1 and 2) and even a third in the over all Grade 3 Dog Jumping.  All in all I am, well, very happy.  Volt is now in Grade 2 in both Jumping and Agility and this of course made me realise, that 'OH CRAP, we are not quite ready for the more complicated courses'.  So now I have tons and tons of homework to be done ASAP.  Some of Volt's vids:







All in all it was a good trip.  It was nice to see some good agility friends from all over the country, we had some really good laughs and for once I could sit on my butt at a show and not run around organising it!  Of course I have some general comments, like the lack of refusal calls (apparently it is okay to spin in front of a jump seven times, sometimes it is okay to for your dog to run ALL the way around the jump, oh and also it's fine for dogs to stick there entire head and neck past the jump three times), haha I am not being too serious about this of course.  There were some really nice courses and a couple of really stupid ones.  But such is the life of Agility of course.  One of the nicest things was the good spirit of the Gauteng guys!

Now I am tired, very tired.  I might write about the weekend some more at a later stage, but this will have to do for now.