Would you compete if you couldnt win?

Silaria said:
If you don't have babies by then, will you still join your mom on the trip? If so, I'd LOVE to meet you!
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No, I'm pretty sure I will have babies. If she isn't pregnant, then she is putting on a show! :smile2: My mother was NOT HAPPY with me, but I can't breed on her schedule, I would never have puppies. I'm pretty bummed about missing all the trials this summer. But it has given me a chance to get the open titles finished on one dog, and get my sable dog out and playing. He might be ready by the Sheltie agility specialty.
 
Would I Compete If I Didn't Win

I would compete for sure. I am a very competitive person and the Q's mean just as much as the placements.I went through a dry spell with Shadow when he was younger for a few months.Every thing that went wrong I went back and trained more.To me it means all my hard work and training has finally paid off so to go out and not just Q but place is a nice feeling.Especially this weekned pulling Shadow out from retirement and really not expecting him to do anything. But he blew me away by winning the ISC JWW and beating the number one 16 inch sheltie in the country is a nice feeling.:biggrin2:
 
ClantyreSheltie said:
AKC wheels for 4/8/12, 16, and big dogs. Those three divisions have separate SCT's. So small dogs are competing against small dogs, not against big long-legged fast dogs. There is a yards per second calculation in there somehow too, which differs for each height class.
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I will have to find the details of that. My instructor (who runs cavaliers) and I are trying to get together some running speeds for different size dogs to put to the ANKC agility committee. How interesting that AKC will run seperate classes even with small numbers - one of the arguments against seperate classes is there is often only 6-10 dogs small dogs.

When you say the pittsburg trial has a great floor do you always run inside - even in summer?
 
*Caro said:
When you say the pittsburg trial has a great floor do you always run inside - even in summer?
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We tend to use indoor soccer fields during the summer, when it is their "off" season. Some are air conditioned, some aren't. Some have old, slippery flooring, and some have better flooring. The one in Pittsburgh is air conditioned, with wi-fi, tons of crating space and a good floor the dogs don't slide on.

There are some outdoor trials, but it really gets too hot and humid to be out all day. I will admit to being a total weather weenie, though our clubs last trial was indoors without A/C and it got to 85 degrees. We had one committee, and almost had a fist fight, so the heat is bad no matter what.
 
These are the latest Agility reg changes:

http://www.akc.org/pdfs/about/board_minutes/0510.pdf

Excellent Standard Course Time:
• 8-inch Division: 2.50 yards per second, plus 5 seconds for the Pause Table.
• 12-inch Division: 2.70 yards per second, plus 5 seconds for the Pause Table.
• 16-inch Division: 2.85 yards per second, plus 5 seconds for the Pause Table.
• 20-inch and 26-inch Divisions: 3.10 yards per second, plus 5 seconds for the
Pause Table.
• 24-inch Division: 2.90 yards per second, plus 5 seconds for the Pause Table.

So 8 inch dogs are allowed 20% more time than 20 inch dogs (if I did that math right :smile2:)
 
*Caro said:
I will have to find the details of that. My instructor (who runs cavaliers) and I are trying to get together some running speeds for different size dogs to put to the ANKC agility committee. How interesting that AKC will run seperate classes even with small numbers - one of the arguments against seperate classes is there is often only 6-10 dogs small dogs.
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It's also more fair on the smaller dogs. There is NO WAY a terrier can run as fast as a BC, Doberman, or Dalmatian. I know I'd be very annoyed I had a toy dog and that dog was expected to run as fast as the big guys to qualify. At least with Shelties you have a chance of running as fast or faster than the big dogs.

*Caro said:
When you say the pittsburg trial has a great floor do you always run inside - even in summer?
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The trial I was at last week, the CPE trial I'll be at this week, and the trial hosted at the end of June by the local Sheltie club (the one Rachel and I were talking about) are all held at the Pittsburgh Indoor Sports Arena which is an indoor soccer, baseball, flag football and other sports. They have a VERY NICE indoor astroturf surface that is actually a very nice surface for the dogs and people to run on. GREAT footing! You can see what the turf looks like in the pictures I posted of Edan from our trial last weekend.

As Rachel pointed out, the facility is HUGE! It has two small "hockey" sized rings and one huge open field. It is air conditioned during the summer (though I still don't think its cool enough in the building when it is the slightest bit humid outside).

My agility club does host an outdoor trial, a NADAC trial, annually but other than that I've only seen indoor trials. Our weather is a bit too flaky at times to count on good weather for trialing. (Pittsburgh is 2nd to Tacoma - or is it Seattle, I can never remember - on the amount of rain per year.)
 
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It is worth noting that most successful small dogs can and do meet/exceed the YPS that are the minimum for the big dogs... BCs and all.
Athena can do 4.5-4.8YPS in standard, and 4.7-5.5YPS in jumpers (and still improving).
 
Narmowen said:
I don't show agility (yet, I hope to with Luke in the future), but I would definitely show agility & obedience even if I knew I wasn't going to win.

Conformation is a different story, though, and losing every time is what made me stop showing.
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It seems to me that Conformation judging has a subjective side that doesn't exist in Agility. While Conformation is judged according to a standard there is still a small bit of room for a judge's personal preference to color the results. In Agility you either stay on course or you don't. You hit your contacts or you don't. You make course time or you don't. And, success or failure in all those things can be directly impacted by your own work. No matter how carefully you breed, the genetic result has aspects that are outside your control. You may find that you are happier in Agility. :smile2:
 
Agility

Phebe*DD said:
It seems to me that Conformation judging has a subjective side that doesn't exist in Agility. While Conformation is judged according to a standard there is still a small bit of room for a judge's personal preference to color the results. In Agility you either stay on course or you don't. You hit your contacts or you don't. You make course time or you don't. And, success or failure in all those things can be directly impacted by your own work. No matter how carefully you breed, the genetic result has aspects that are outside your control. You may find that you are happier in Agility. :smile2:[/ I could not agree with you more. That is why they call it training.
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