canine fun sports

There are a few "labels" for certain handling systems. I am not a Greg Derrett advocate. In my eyes, he gives a set or artificial rules (artificial in the sense that the dog has to learn that there are things he is not allowed to do, and he does not know it intuitively). One example is that Greg Derrett does not allow his dogs to spin around and jump a jump from the opposite direction (back jump). My dogs understand clear signals about when to back jump and when to wrap. This gives me a very useful tool to use during a gamblers class when a backjump can give me an extra point or two without adding extra metres to travel. Linda Mecklenberg's system does not have a set of rules, but rather a set of tools and advice on how to use them, but always with the emphasis that you need to use the correct balance of tools for your individual dog. Some dogs react more to movement, others to verbal, others to the use of arms etc etc. Personally, I lean strongly toward the Linda Mecklenberg system, with a few of my own tools added in. I teach these tools, and give advice on how each handler and dog team can best balance their own communication system. I find the system I use based on Linda Mecklenberg (as taught by Ronda Carter) and other influences allows me to give the dog very early information on where the course goes next, thus creating a smoother run with less wear and tear on my dogs joints; it allows me to compete fully on all courses and maximises my chances on all open and gamblers courses. If you want a little bit of information about the way we teach agility, just go to the website and click on the button about information for the serious agility trainer (or a title something like that) on the home page. My advice is to not get caught up in the "systems" argument. If you go to a club where they advocate a system, and they are telling you that you are not allowed to handle your dog in a certain way because it is 'against their system" my reply would be "my dog does not know your system" and I think I can effectively communicate with my dog this way.

It was either Keith Millington or Jane Lawrence. I cannot remember which classes they judged though. Cheers,

There should be tickets available at the front gate on sunday morning. Cheers,

I plan to put my camera in, but I fear i will be too busy most days - especially the Wednesday. We still have a couple of busy days ahead of us with preparations, but it seems that things are coming together. I am just hoping that there is nothing that has been forgotten on the "to do" list. It promises to be a sensational event. Cheers,

There is a pinned topic in the Dogs Sports forum (see the top of the training forum) called "Where to do Agility". I had the same inquiry and suggested that she contact DogsVic. Cheers,

I did not see the run, nor did I see the video, but I suspect that Delta Charlie's explanation is correct. Perhpas on the video, you can listen to hear if the judge is actually telling you what he is wanting to see happen (Jodie is usually pretty good at that!) but with the excitement you did not hear him. IF you were to be penalised for having 2 dogs on the dog walk at the same time, it could only be if the judge considered it to be unsafe behaviour, in which case it would be a disqualification, and the judge would not allow you to repeat the unsafe behaviour. I would not DQ for having 2 dogs on the dog walk unless it looked like the second dog was being allowed to try to overtake the first dog. It the handler of the second dog was obviously keeping the dog's speed under control so there was no collision, then I would not DQ. 2 dogs near a see-saw in pairs is frightening, and as a judge I have been known to intervene and block the path of one of the dogs. I have seen dogs nearly receive a broken jaw from a tipping see-saw. In fact, after one such near miss, I have decided that at the next rule change, I will suggest that the see-saw be removed from the equipment list in pairs. It can be bloody dangerous. Cheers,

2 points to be made from this question. 1. Everyone who enters is elligible for tickets (I believe) 2. You are eligible for the final by being placed in the heats (the number of qualifiers in each heat varies with the height category). So you can certainly get into the final from entering just one heat, so long as you do well. Cheers,

This is UNOFFICIAL, but I believe a more official announcement is coming. It is actually in line with what has already been officially announced. Spectators can go to watch any of the first four days - Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat. There is no charge on this, and no limits on numbers since there will be indoor and outdoor rings, so we do not expect to exceed the OH&S limits to the numbers allowed in the arena. For the finals day, each competitor will be issued with 2 tickets (which I believe will be given out on their first day of competition, when they check in.) Spectators may do as they please with the tickets. They can use them, they can give them to friends, they can sell them on the black market! or they can give them back to the organisers to be sold at the gate to the general public. I am not sure, but I beieve that tidckets to the public are $10, and $5 for children. So, if you are not a competitor, and you want tickets, you can go searching for some-one who is not planning to go to the finals.

I apologise for keeping it off topic, but this is the classic moment that I say "Then get a better handling system!" Or perhaps I should be saying, use your handling system more effectively! We often hear this complaint in Sydney, so it simply inspires me to think up more "evil" challenges for them. Cheers,

Just 10 days until entries close. Be nice to the trial secretary - use e-performance to do your entries, but please, make sure you use the membership numbers and dog registration numbers that are on your registration forms. A huge thank you to the Dogs NSW agility committee. You have no idea about the work that is involved. Cheers,

I agreed with this & find the same thing with the system I use. Over analysing trial courses from a rules perspective just puts extra things in your head when you are running it. I try to save my analysing for planning my training sessions and just hope like hell it has become second nature when it comes time to test in a trial situation. I had an interesting run in CFS masters jumping last Saturday. I ran a dog that has been trained exclusively with the GD handling system. I have never run him before, and handled him using exactly the same cues (similar to CFS system) as I handled Trim with. He took 2 bars, one was on a straight (so not affected by system cues) and the other was a poor signal from me before he had committed to a jump. Other than the 2 bars, he nailed it! He showed no confusion whatsoever with the handling system I ran, even though I used a totally different system to what his owner would have.To top it all off, other than the 2 bars, he would have beaten Trim on the same course by just under half a second. Food for thought... I think there are two points to be made from Vikie's comments. 1. I think a lot of handlers get bogged down in rules. Working with what you intuitively think the dog will respond to is often the right way to go. I do, however, find it useful to figure out why a dog reponds intuitively to something - it helps me reproduce it agian in the future. 2. The system of handling that works intuitively with the dog, without artificial rules (I.e. rules we impose that have to be learnt by the dog) seem to be understood very easily by all dogs, even those that have been taught these other "rules". Just food for thought. Cheers,

I meant to add that Vickie and Trim's run was rather spectacular and did leave me with goose bumps. Cheers,

Layering and turning the dog away from you (which I call a tandem turn, and this is different to a change behind) are definitely frowned upon in the Greg Derrett handling system. Hence, there are some GD handlers who no longer enter open becasue these types of challenges are common in open class. The GD system also has limitations in Gamblers (at least the quite complex gamblers courses that I really enjoy doing). My personal advice to these people is a simple "Why choose a handling system with those limitations???" I have my own handling system, heavily based on manoevres taught by Ronda Carter and Elicia Calhoun with a touch of a few others including what I have read of Linda Mecklenberg + I can think of one thing of Greg Derrett's that I include and my own finishing touches. I seem to be able to communicate to my dog with very rare moments of confusion with turns away, layering, distance and close work. Those moments of confusion are because my timing has been a little incorrect, rather than the dog received conflicting information. There are many ways to teach the "turn away from me". They include either the "flick of the hand" (a no-no with GD), using the opposite arm to turn the dog away, which GD says should mean the dog turns to you. the way I work my dogs, the turn-away-from-me uses a very different arm movement and the dog naturally reads it. Another way to turn the dog away is to put pressure on the dogs line by moving closer to the dog. There are quite a few drills that can be done to develop these skills. Layering is a very different skill to the "out", or "work wide" command. Lia, you are quite right to establish the dogs line, and then move parallel or slightly converge. If an obstacle happens to be between you and the dog, it should make no difference to the line that the dog takes. I believe (I am not a GD expert so I happy to be corrected) GD says that if there is an obstacle between you and the dog, the dog should converge to you over the obstacle. To me this is an artificial rule (one the dog does not do naturally, so you have to teach it.) Your movement should dictate (naturally) whether to converge, or keep driving. To teach layering, first teach the dog to run a line parallel to you. Do multiple repetitions of a sequence, each time working a little bit wider. Once the dog is happy to drive the line out wide of you (with you moving parallel) the simply place some simple obstacles between your line and the dogs line. It it distracts the dog, you might simply start with a jump bar, then a single jump. You can put a target out in front of the dog. NOTE - if you start to lag, then the dog should start to converge, because he will start to look back to see where you are. I would not choose to layer if AI thought I was going to be behind my dog. Hope that all makes sense! Cheers,

A note from the JDO judge: The challenge was set up to handle with a turn away from me cue from a position where you would be slightly ahead of your dog (from the side closer to the starting line), but unfortunately 90% of people tried to handle it from the other side (side further from the starting line) so they were pushing there dog a little bit away from them, but most handlers were well behind their dog. To make this push harder, the exclusion line was veering away from the challenge. Those who handled it well from what I considered the correct side did spectacular runs, including the winner. The dogs that made the challenge from the other side were dogs that just bolted out of the tunnel to the jump that was ahead, and I consider these dogs were, in fact, "blowing off" the postion of the handler who was behind them. I stood there shaking my head with most of the runs because I was dumbfounded at the number of handlers who worked the other side to what I expected. I have trid to attach the course below. It seems to load OK as a gif, but not as a bmp. Jumps 4 and 5 were staggered a little bit differently than this map.

Murphy was trained with the box, with advice from Ronda Carter, and before the video was available. We also used stride regualtors. Her scramble was fantastic, but we started competition, with the different surfaces on the scrambles, her footwork fell apart. At first, she maintained criteria on the rubber chip surfaces and only had problems on clipperier surfaces, but after a while it rather fell apart. I retrained for a leap over the top using a stirde reulator into a fast scramble into a 2on2off position. I do not think I would train another running scramble until the surfaces on the scrambles are pretty much all rubber chip. It is also possible that I did not concentrate on the pounce into the box as a more deliberate behaviour. Cheers,

Now that is a big bonus!!! Way to go! Cheers,

My memory is obviously not quite a clear as Vickie's although I am sure i remember a "Maple" in the distant past! If I am not busy (judging) make sure you come up and jog my memory by reintroducing yourself! Cheers,

Totally depends on the fitness and attitude of the dog. Sparkle is now nearly 10 and has (not officially announced yet)made it onto the NSW agility team. Rabbit continued to compete until she was 13 years old, and I had her out at a training day was weekend and gave her a go. Although not jumping her full height, at 15 years of age she is still doing the full size scramble and dog walk, a full set of weaves and, although her body is not going at the speed she thinks it is, she did not pull up at all sore. Keep in mind that Rabbit is a 600 dog, who only just gets into that height category, and when she first started her career, she was jumping 760. She would be similar build to the labrador you are discussing. Some of our other dogs have retired younger. I would certainly consider at least getting her back to training - if she is enjoying it then continue. At the very least you can get your own skills working again to use with a new puppy. At the best, you will have a dog you can enjoy and compete with successfully for a few years to come. cheers,

Also, during competition, just like human diving comps, they keep the surface of the water moving, so that the surface tension is not an issue. Cheers,

But they are landing in water!!!?

Deleted because I accidentallyposted this twice.

I have no idea about any of the vets out in Orange. Just talk to your own vet - if you let him know you are concerned about a thorough examination to find out any issues for "a future athlete" I am sure he will give your dog a thorough going over. And if he has a few breeders using that practice, they wil have the experience to get the HD radiographs done right the first time for a hip scoring. (They are VERY fussy about the positioning and labelling.)

Getting back to the original question (that seems to have branched out to foundation work - and that is a whole other issue): I certainly think that everyone should have their dog fully assessed before starting any serious agility (and probably some other dog sports, as well.) This is not to say that any negative results would preclude dogs from training and competition. I personally know a lot of dogs that have quite severe hip displacia that are competing at the highest level of agility and some in herding. But we should know about our dogs' physical condition before we put their bodies through the stresses and strains of competition. It allows us to alter there exercise program, etc accordingly. My advise would be a full check up with a vet that knows something about dog sports - either a vet involved in agility, or a greyhound vet. I do not think bloods are necessary, but a thorough musculo-skeletal examinination including hip radiographs are a definite recommendation, and in this case I would certainly get the patellas checked closely. If problems are found then you can get appropriate exercises for the dog to do to help strengthen the weaknesses. Cheers,

As some-one has also said, the point of the table timer is to eliminate the inaccuracy caused by human reaction times, and the rate of counting. So, if the judge only hears it, there is still a large inaccuracy with their cll to the handler. I, for one, cannot count from 5 to one in exactly the same rate every time, and that is not the only source of inaacuracy. There is my reaction time when the dog hits the table and that error can be quite significant!! Although it shouldn't happen, at the end of a day, a judge will sometimes be guilty of "dog watching" and, although you are often counting in your head, you forget to count out loud. By the time you start counting, there is a large variation in the time on the table. It may not be large enough to be obvious, but you have to remember, these events are timed to 100ths of a second. All these human errors are eliminated with the table counter - the only difference between performances is the reaction time of the handler and dog and that is what we are testing! The other thing the table timer does, it can accurately monitor whether a dog jumps off early. And there is usually one or two dogs in a trial that you give the benefit of the doubt - did he leave just before I said go. With the table timer, you know if the rapid beeps go off, the dog was there for the required count. If they do not go off, he jumped off early. Very clear cut and not longer and doubt. The timer, to date, has not failed in competition (but it has not been used a lot, yet. In practice, there have been some rare cases when the has failed (probably 4 times and it has now been jumped on 1000's of times) But its error rate is much lower than mine, and I presume I am not much worse at it than other judges, so I think we can presume its error rate is much lower than that of any human judge. As a judge that really likes to use the table (in all classes), but sometimes gets mild laryngitis when having to do frequent table counts (not that it shuts me up) I think the table is a fantastic tool. Cheers

As said in several areas of discussion (although I do not do facebook), it is the hypercritical people, (whether they are interstate, Armidale, before or after the Nationals etc) who have not even seen the table, and the lack of trust in the people providing it (whether that is myself and Keith or the NSW Agility committee) to give people the maximum opportunity possible to practice it beforehand. In this thread we WERE talking about the use of the table in Armidale. Yes, it will be there on the Tuesday afternoon, and each morning - assuming I do not have a fatal car accident on my way to the venue, or that Keith and I are not dealing with some other emergency situation. Can I be any clearer, yet again. And, if you have done a little homework with a "noise maker" under any table at home before you get here, you should not have any issue at all. Once again, it will be up to the individual judges whether they use it and how they use it. Am I cranky about people's attitude - bloody right I am.