New to Judging - new string same bow?

Well I survived. In fact I not only survived, I thoroughly enjoyed my first judging experiences.

Sadly I had to abandon my appointment for Agility Nuts due to losing Kodi that day. If the decision had been made the evening before part of me would have felt it was better to get on with it. However at Tunbridge his son Rocky did a beautiful clear in my class. I didn't see it clearly though as my eyes were full of tears. Luckily nobody noticed and I disappeared for a quick 'comfort' break straight after.

Rocky Cook

Kodi

So my first official judging appointment was at Tunbridge Wells for the Novice Olympia Qualifier. Note to new judges best not offer to be a reserve until you have judged a few classes as you never know what you might get and you may only be asked a couple of days before.

Luckily for me I had a free diary and my own equipment so was able to spend a few hours designing and setting up my course and a husband who was happy to run his and mine dogs round it for me to practice judging it.

My approach is to write a brief of what I want from the course. For a novice olympia qualifier I looked at giving straight lines (1-3, 4-6 and 7-9). I wanted a dog that enjoyed flowing and could also turn nicely. It was important to me to give choices so handlers could turn the dog how they saw fit and no matter what handling style. 


Good running contacts are lovely to see so I had a straight on after the contacts for young dogs as an encouragement. There is plenty of time later to work on turns. 

Here is the resulting course

Strangely many dogs refused 3 regardless of their contact method. 

Another place for unexpected faults was the jump after the seesaw. Physically the dog had to manage its contact and then take off for the jump and then drop for the tunnel. The spacings were ample. It appeared to be either handlers rushing off giving the tunnel command off the seesaw that caused the dog to be wrong footed on the jump or sadly some dogs not being quite fit enough to take on the challenge or not enough understanding of the release command on the seesaw and panicking.

I loved watching 10 - 14 as there were many options of how to handle it. There were a lot of very good runs and I can not remember which way the winner did this.

It was surprising how many dogs/handlers went wide or struggled with 16 -19.

Well done to the winner Emma Nicolson with Tailswood Twice as Nice who completed the course in 30.317. The course length was approx 112 but I forgot to write in on my paperwork and it is not on the results sheet. 

As the class was split the top 3 qualify so well done to Julie Dowle and Dreamorox Dare to Dream and Aileen Watson with Micky The Rocketeer.

I was more confident than I thought I would be and really enjoyed it. I was however exhausted. 

The ring party were great and helped set up my next course. It did need a bit of tweaking but people waiting to walk and lunch calling meant I didn't rewalk it.

This was a mistake. 

The course was by no means awful but it was not as nice as I wanted it to be for Grade 1-2. With my mind caught up with understanding the poor make up of the course I found it hard to concentrate once an error was made. My other mistake was to be lenient with refusals and not calling a refusal unless the dog actually went past the obstacle. The final learning point was I had no system for recording how many refusals there had been and sometimes I continued to mark after the dog was eliminated. 

Here is how the course might have looked 

Well done to the winners - 
Grade 1 Lauren Ellis with Homelyne Blue Jazz in a time of 37.062
Grade 2 Gillian Bignall Milyon Quest of Valgray in a time of 33.292

Thanks to my scribe Sharon Marsh and my ring party led by Simon Chandler.

Now to learn from my mistakes.

After chatting to a few judges Kay Faiers told me of her system to keep a track of faults, eliminations and even clears. It is simple and I practiced using it a Thames my next appointment. The system is arms folded in front of my body to indicate to my scribe that I am ready. If a fault is incurred then my arms will become uncrossed as I signal the fault. If my arms are still across my body at the end of the run I can clap as it is a clear round :)

If the fault is a refusal I bend a finger, three fingers bend - elimination. I did nearly become unstuck with this with raising my hand to show a fault with some bent fingers could have appeared rude. I didn't make that mistake again.

Once I eliminated I crossed my hands behind my back to stop me indicating any further faults and no clap at the end.

Just faults would mean my hands were just at my side.

It was great so thank you Kaye I will continue to use that confident that it keeps me more focussed and aware of what is the marking status of the dog in the ring. It was lovely to clap confidently that the dog had gone clear too.

As I was only judging one class at Thames and it was Graded 6/7 I have not had a chance to address the course change issue but I do know to be aware of it.

I had a good time to set up and practice the course in parts with some of my students and on my monthly visit to North Derbyshire as I knew none of them were travelling down to Newbury. And Mark of course.

I originally had the cloth tunnel in but replaced it with the long jump. I do not like the cloth tunnel but also believe that the less my dog comes across it the less likely he is to understand it so it should appear in other courses than champ. I want to believe there is a good place in a course for them. However with the latest KC liaison meeting including a change to the design and the fact the weather can be very wet at Thames on the Sunday (Saturday night is not known to be a dry one either but that is another matter) I decided not to use it.

My brief for myself was to produce a fast flowing course with choices that could be handled close or at a distance displaying a good understanding of the dogs lines and a good relationship.

I certainly saw some flowing runs where dog and handler knew where they were going at every turn.

One thing that surprised me was that 19 to 20 was a bounce stride if a good turn was achieved on 18. Several dogs that had been eliminated elsewhere on the course demonstrated that it was a bounce and Steve Richardson's dog (or rather the lovely Vicky's dog run by Steve). It may be that for the grade 7's there was no need to win so they inadvertently slowed at the end or maybe with other things to work on bounce striding is not. Generally a bounce stride can save 1/3 of a second. Steve won the grade 6.

 Thank you all that commented on my courses and I am made up that someone has said they want to set up and time some of it to see the quicker way.

I am judging again at DV in August and am looking forward to it.

Thanks very much again to my scribe Sharon Marsh, my ring manager Jane Price and the ring party some of which were from my old club UpAndOver.

I have been asked to judge again by both Tunbridge Wells and Thames which is a major confidence giver. They were great to judge for and know how to look after their judges but Mark is going to do them next year so that means I am available for a couple of other shows ;)

Can we do a hat trick?

Time flies when you are having fun and already it is June.

The early part of my agility season was clouded by Rhyme not being right. Mostly he appeared sound except for 2 cases of right front leg lameness. One for a day on the Wednesday before Scunthorpe Champ and one for 2 days for the Wednesday and Thursday before the Performance weekend. In between for all intents and purposes he appeared sound. 

Not only did I miss running in these shows but we could not start our fitness and training programme that I had planned. Well I could have done mine it was just I had lost the motivation. I did continue with keeping my weight down but did not loose anymore.

After several physio sessions,a chiro treatment and some swimming we are looking like being on the right track to start working on fitness. I was also lucky in that although I am not officially part of the Agility Team GB I do help out a lot which meant that Maria Johnson kindly spent some time on him and pointed us in the right direction to getting sorted.

My chiro Christine East thought the time was right to see how he was and get in the ring at the SKC show. The result was that we made the final even though we were both a bit rusty and we had not done any of the training I had planned. 

Goal 1 of the year - get to a champ final met :)

This weekend we had Nottingham champ show and with the Agility Team GB training day on the Monday after to prepare for I still did not have much time to get moving forward with my training programme for us. (Again I possibly could have squeezed in some running!).

I was running first in the Champ Agility with a large course that totally confirmed that doing some running training is a definite on my list. Thank you Peter and Tricia Elms for giving me the motivation I need for that. TBH Alan Short's Cruft's singles on Sunday would also have been done a lot better if my footwork skills were better. So no Crufts single points for us

We did however deliver a clear for our Crufts Team the Scunthorpe Hustlers and so did all the others meaning the goal/dream of competing at Crufts again has been achieved.

So next weekend is Hinckley show I wonder if we can make a hat trick of goals achieved. 

The choices are : 
1. Make another championship final which would continue me towards my new goal of achieving 50% of champ finals this year.

2. A clear in top 10 of Olympia qualifier

3. A clear in top 10% of Crufts singles (actually we may have done this week as there were other 300 dogs in the class so 30th place would have given us that)

Other things I am working on around shows is doing all the classes I have entered. I often just focus on the 'important' ones and miss the tannoy announcements for the others as my brain isn't focussed enough on them. Next year when I have Pikachu to run I will need my wits about me to get her classes in too. The other one is embracing the number of foot steps I do at a show as I am working on 10k a day average in a belief that it assists me with keeping my weight down :)

Pikachu Bascis

Well Pikachu came into our lives when there was a massive gap left in our hearts when we lost Oddjob. 


Oddjob was our lovely pug who came into our lives and sadly left far too soon. He introduced to us the joys of small dogs. He was funny and cuddly and enjoyed attention.

Pikachu is half pug by blood but probably only 1/10 pug in body and mind. The rest of her is terrier or possibly even part BC by now.

The tiny, cute little puppy has developed into a full on 7 month old who wants to be running, climbing, playing and learning.

We now are realising that she is probably going to be an agility dog.

There are certain basics that we like our agility dog to have -

• the right conformation for their body to cope with the physical challenges the sport of agility presents to them 
• the want to play and learn
• understanding of reinforcement

The understanding of reinforcement is important. If they understand and want the reward enough when you are teaching them something new they know they have got it right because they are rewarded for it. 

If they do not understand or want the reward given then a skill can not be created by positive reinforcement.

Learn to earn is a phrase used to explain a relationship where the handler sets the scene to help the dog want to earn rewards. 

In Pikachu's case she loves food and she loves treats and she wants to work to find out a way of earning them.

We love crate games as a way of helping our dogs to understand and build self control. If you stay in the crate when the door is open then you will get a reward at the back of the crate. If you come out of the crate then no reward. Easy to do and easy to understand. Then we up the challenges.

Below are some clips of various training I have been doing with Pikachu they vary from crate training, it's your choice, ready steady go to putting her harness or a coat on.

She has a great attitude with loads of enthusiasm and genuinely tries to work out what I want from her. I am looking forward to building on these foundations and seeing what a great agility dog she is going to be.


I regularly liken trying to put her coat or harness on as wrestling with a greased pig. I looked at some footage of greased hog wrestling and decided the hog was not as happy about it as Pikachu is with any interaction so haven't included a clip of that. 

Spending time teaching her the behaviour I would like when coat or harness needs to go on/off.

Don't judge me

Well after a few years in agility as an instructor and competitor I have decided to add judging to my agility experiences.

Mark has always judged and I spent many years either scriming for him, helping manage the ring party, looking after kids and dogs, helping our club members etc etc.

We no longer run a club and Mark had less appointments for a couple of years and so I found myself at shows with some spare time.

Rhyme is now Grade 7 (did I mention has had his first champ class already) so at non champ shows I have less focus on running a dog.

I judged at Scunthorpe unknowing that I should have taken the practical judges exam having taken a rules & regs course many moons ago when it first came in. The powers that be let me know that if I wanted to judge again I should really take the new practical judges course too.

Luckily Jackie Gardener was running a weekend seminar at Worcester just up the road from where an old friend of ours lives. I decided to do the rules and regulations again too but as Mark has judged loads he didn't need to do that part. He is going to apply to be a champ judge once he has sorted out his records of which shows he has judged at to display his experience. If you know of a show he judged at please email me the show and date so we can find the schedule.

Mark dropped me off and went to our friends for the day. It was a great course. I was glad that I chose to do it. My own agility focus had been on understanding courses and picking up on trends early in order to help my students get the most out of their dogs at shows. Now the boot was on the other foot and I needed to think about how my courses can test the dog's training.

There are many things to consider. The main one is obviously safety. Another one is can I actually judge what I have set out for the number of dogs in the class. Having to run the length of the dog walk for a 30 dog class may be doable but if the class is over 100 that is not going to happen despite my fitness drive at the moment. 

I could go on but if you are wanting to know about these things from your own perspective then I would strongly advise going on a course even if you may not be wanting to judge.

I do already have 2 appointments lined up and am a reserve judge too. With hindsight being a reserve judge is going to be really challenging if I get called up. I may design a few courses just to be on the safe side

If you think you'd like to enter a class I am judging  -

Agility Nuts 2 April and Thames (schedule isn't out yet).


I have one other local appointment to be confirmed so quite happy with that for my first year of judging.

Having so much experience as a competitor and instructor one thing that I hope my courses will do is develop dogs with simple "tests' in my courses. Sometimes the level of complexity was too much for what I wanted my young dogs to have to cope with. 

On the other hand I don't think they had enough experience of some of the lesser used pieces of equipment in the beginning. Now at Champ they are having to deal with complex sequences along with suddenly having to cope with the wall, the well , cloth tunnel and tyre. As these are considered valid pieces of equipment I think it is important that they are used. 

When we first moved here I found the roundabout at Newark a challenge and potentially it was dangerous. Anyone attending Nottingham Show will know the now I mean. Now with practice it is a doddle even though I am on alert as I know other people may find it difficult and I need to watch them too. 

Other friends will have experienced this.

Likewise I think some of the obstacles need to be practiced much more than they currently are to ensure the dogs do know how to negotiate them properly. 

The more practiced they are the less likely an accident will happen.

With that thought in mind please try to get your club to put their tyre and/or cloth tunnel out to build your dog's understanding of them just in case they are in any of my courses ;)

Measuring and goal setting

We had an interesting weekend of measuring.

In goal setting measuring is sometimes the hardest thing to do. Without a starting measure or idea of what you want the finishing measure to be then it is hard to know if you have reached your target.

I had some ideas of the times of the top dogs on contacts etc which I used last year to time Rhyme in order to see if we would be competitive in the Championship classes. Last weekend I a real chance to see how we 'measured up" in his first Championship class.

We achieved one of my main goals for this year already by getting a clear in the jumping round. This then helped me set my next goal and gave me a figure of 2 seconds to work on over the course as a whole as we were 2 seconds off the top dogs.

I am greatly encouraged by that as 2 seconds is not really a lot and can be broken down into manageable pieces.

For me one of the reasons I am off the pace is that my fitness can be improved. Before Christmas myself and my neighbour got together to help each other lose weight. We meet once a week for a weigh in and to exercise. We are making good progress. I am confident that this will help with my agility times and watching my weight can be easily measured.

Mark and I will be looking at some of the other tests available to check and the assess  any improvements to our fitness once we get another spare weekend. I will report back on that.

Meanwhile something else we looked at was measuring our dogs height. This weekend we are both doing the judges practical. I am also doing the new rules and regs exam on Saturday. Mark is looking to be a Champ judge once he's jumped through the hoops and I'm just wanting to add judging to my agility experiences. I have 3 appointments booked for this year (provided I pass of course). We also thought that it may be good to become measurers.

Having a relatively quiet day lined up we decided to practice measuring our own dogs. We measured first thing before breakfast, midday and after they had been fed in the afternoon.

Pickachu - 320, 328, 320

Moog - 545, 560, 551

Rhyme - 528, 540,550

Devo - 523, 533, 515

Torro - 545,552, 551

Kodi - 491, 491, 496

Quite surprising results including that some were smaller straight after their food. The main thing to us that it is not an exact science.

Being able to stand to be measured is quite important especially the smaller wiggly ones like Pikachu. we do not want her to be stressed about agility and so I spent some time teaching her that the measure was a fun place to be. 

Also I think we may stick to running our own dogs, judging, training and our other commitments for now and maybe come back to measuring next year :)

Be more Pikachu

Well Pikachu is nearly 6 months now and it seems like she has been with us forever.

She is always happy and always ready to get into mischief. Of course she doesn't know that climbing on the table is mischief, she doesn't know that getting under the gate is mischief, she doesn't know that climbing on agility equipment she hasn't been taught to do is mischief OR does she?

I often admire her positive and can do attitude and being so excited about the smallest things. Then I realised that these are traits I do luckily share.

My positive,if a little naive thoughts, about the changes the KC are making.

When something has to be done then I do usually find a way to get it done.

I even still get excited about many things like Rhyme's first Champ class coming up this weekend, doing the judges course, competing at Crufts, training in a new environment with Rhyme, having new customers etc etc. Yes when it comes down to it I am more Pikachu than I first thought :) 

Here's a few clips of how she is doing with some little training sessions we did this afternoon.

Training session various

Pikachu training sit wait to a toy

Pikachu down with treats

Pikachu learning to help with putting her harness on

Jump

By coincidence the song Jump was playing on the radio as I start writing todays blog.

Like everyone in the agility community my head is spinning with the press release about jump heights.

Kennel Club Press Release

I personally think it is a great step forward and a great way to get data for research to understand the impact of jump heights without completely changing things in a way there would be no way of going back from. Rather than the research being confined to a few scientists, everyone in the agility community will get first hand experiences - judges, competitors, and show organisers 

Judges - in some organisation elsewhere in the world of agility judges are key in making the rules. They are the people who watch agility more critically than most. To judge a class of dogs of the same measured height category competing for the same prize over the same course at different jumps heights will really help identify how lower jumps changes a courses dynamics. There will be some that understand these things that may even feel a challenge to produce a course that evens out the jump height in some way. I'm not an experience judge yet so it won't be me ;) There is a worry that lower jumps creating more speed would mean the dogs are hitting other obstacles quicker too and could cause more risk of injury. Judging the different options would illustrate if that is in fact the case and give opportunity to consider how course design might need to change if lower jumps become the norm. 

Show organisers - wow, good luck is all I can say except that we may be underestimating these smart people who took going to 7 grades in their stride, organise changes to venues to cope with weather at the drop of the hat etc etc and really are the unsung heroes of agility. Without you there would be no agility competition so whilst quietly confident that you will make the best of this I also hope it isn't too challenging.

Competitors - What fun this is going to be in looking at shows to enter, what classes to enter - so much choice. What a gamble if looking for wins to move up. If you know the class is split do you do lower height as you can go faster or the standard height as there may not be so many dogs to compete against. A minefield - game of minesweepers anyone? Strategy is going to be a key mental skill or maybe lady luck will just be busier. 

There will be a call for people to be honest and as many have mentioned there may not be "fairness". IMO agility can never be looked at as all things being equal - dogs and people are all of different shape and personality. Not to mention age and sex, so no matter what rules changes there are, in a competition there will always be winners and losers. If you can not accept that then agility is never going to be a happy place for you to compete in. The top dogs and handlers will still get to the top.

Dogs - Really this is the most important category. This is really GREAT news for our dogs and their long term competitiveness. Not to mention their length of time being able to compete.

Moog is going to have a great start to agility being able to gain confidence at shows first at any size, then at the lower height and then move up to standard height as he progresses. 

Even though our dogs are allowed to compete at 18 months many dogs get fitter and stronger as they mature and reach peak at 4 to 7 years old. So it makes sense to allow them the easier task of jumping lower until they move up the grades. It is a formula followed in the horse world where higher jumps and more complex hurdles are only introduced as the horse wins up through their 'grades'.

Pikachu was tiny as a pup but has grown into her large personality to the extent that she might even end up as medium. A medium dog with Jack Russell legs and a Pug body would possibly have a short competition time as weight to height would worry me. We did not get her as an agility dog but she has her own agenda! With this new looking schedule then we will be able compete at  the lower height. We are competitive people deep down so just running at Anysize may not have given us the motivation to train her the same etc. This is all a lot of ifs as she is only 6 months but illustrates to me the differences this rule could make to her. 

I am sure there are a lot of handlers with dogs like her that are now going to be able to enjoy competing more with dogs that weren't a perfect fit height wise before.

So as Van Halen says - Jump