I attended our local Kennel Club
meeting which had an unusually high turnout. The main topic people had come to discuss was whether or not to introduce a 4th height
I do agree that there is a large gap between medium & large and it must be tough for those dogs only just measuring out of medium. In the main the people at our meeting had dogs who were heavy set which made it uncomfortable to jump the full height. The conclusion was that it is actually conformation not height that affects a dogs ability to jump.
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| Agility Champion Bekkis Carbon Copy |
In fact the last three dogs that won the Crufts Championship class and this years winners of both Novice and Senior Olympia would all be Standard at UKA which is lower than the proposed cut off for the new height at KC.
I for one would miss the opportunity to compete with these dogs and am concerned that the new height would in fact contain at least half of the most competitive dogs in this country.
At the meeting one person said they just wanted to feel included and I wondered if there is another option that would be beneficial and to more than just those lucky enough to fit in the new proposed height category.
A whole new clasification called One Height Below. Simply this would mean any dog could jump a height one height below its measure. This would then include dogs like GSD's, Retreivers etc in fact any dog who's handler would be more "comfortable" with their dog jumping a lower height.
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| A lovely Retreiver looking more than comfortable |
People could elect to run OHB at the time of being measured and the measurers mark their KC book accordingly.
Championship status would not be available to these dogs so
competitive people would not choose to do them.
Once reaching Grade 5 there would be a one time option to revert to same size classes at square one to allow dogs that have become competitive to compete at their same height.
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| Stunning GSD |
with scribe sheets being split out as they are now for graded classes.
Sponsors could be approached to have qualifiers for this classification too.
It is easy to say "oh this won't work because how do we know that dog has elected to run one height below". Well the answer is we don't but how do we know anybody has won up a grade etc. Many years ago a lady
accidentally ran in the Champ class at one show. It was her first show and she didn't know how to complete the entry form. It wasn't until she ran that the mistake was obvious.
To make this work the show organisers would need to run OHB classes in parallel with the same height classes so some input from show organisers would be useful as to if this would be achievable.
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| Stroller & Marion Mould the only pony to compete at the Olympics in Show Jumping. |
Another option I heard
about today.
Fiona Boyne told me that in the show jumping world they start horses on lower jumps and it is
only as you move up the levels that the heights go up.
If we applied this to
agility Grades 1 - 3 could compete at medium height, 4 -5 at a new 4th height
then 6 - 7 at full height. This would mean the competitive and able dogs would
move up through the grades and the dogs that can't compete at a higher height would therefore stay at a height they could. It would be self regulating as dog will only progress as
high as it can comfortably jump.
Mediums - G1-4 start
at small height and G5 - 7 jump medium.
Smalls - G1-4
start a toy height and then move up to small.
This could work
although I am not sure I would find it easy to run Rhyme at medium. It wouldn't hurt him though and it is not all about me and my dog.
Again thoughts from
show managers or others on if this idea would be workable.
You can't say I'm not
trying to look for a solution that could work for all dogs and handlers.
Healthy debate is good
to help find solutions to problems. IMO sadly some of the 4th height
brigade were not there to listen or debate at our meeting, only to bully and
intimidate with their only concern themselves.
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| Flint |
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| Rhyme |
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| Devo |
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| Torro |
That's really interesting Karen - my dog Sixx is a tiny large but she doesn't struggle at all at full height so I'm kind of on the fence! Your one height below option sounds good to me. If I thought Sixx was struggling to jump full height I probably would do something else with her!
ReplyDeleteHi Becky
ReplyDeletethanks for the comment. I do think there must be some thing that can make agility accessible to more breeds but think the 4th height option is only a smal minority. This option would very drastically alter the face of agility and only appear to benefit a very few (actual benefit to encourage some of these dogs to jump in any shape or form is questionable anyway) which is why I am against it.
Dogs like your's would benefit unless it is proven that the extra speed due to decreased height could increase impact effect. It's a mine field when you look deeper at the science.
Best we can do is make sure our dogs are as fit as can be and be sensible about how much we do.
There is no reason a fit active dog can't enjoy agility in it's current format for it's life :)
Really nice to see a mostly positive response to the fourth height that doesn't just try to impose extra hurdles because the author doesn't want the change!
ReplyDeleteBoth options seem viable to me, I wonder if the second would achieve the same as in business where people get promoted to their level of incompetance. You might need an option for a dog to drop back a grade at the height boundaries.
My own dogs don't struggle with large height and won't be affected by the fourth height discussion item, however imo my Rottie might well suffer fewer long term arthitis problems by jumping lower, but she has got to G6 at the current height.
Thanks for thinking about this and responding in a positive manner. If only the discussion wasn't so polarised in the beginning!
Hi Mark
Deletethanks for your comment and lovely to hear of a Rottie in G6. I look forward to seeing you at the shows this year. Although I have always had collies I enjoy watching powerful dogs doing agility.
The agility community will sort this out eventually I'm sure :)
Some very interesting points Karen, thank you. I certainly hadn't thought of the idea of one height below and I don't think anyone has raised that before for agility. If there was not such a big gap between Medium and Large, might that give a better choice? I don't know much about the horse world but is it right that horses are not expected to jump higher than their height at the withers, except for puissance horses? I was at the meeting too and, honestly,I wasn't aware of any bullying or intimidation. There was one forthright person that spoke at the beginning but they were not in favour of a 4th height and had an injured dog that was jumping lower on advice of their physio, do you remember? I think it was agreed that conformation was not the only issue - this is where I remember the meeting being "lively" when that point was raised. I think it was difficult for everyone to have a say at the meeting. This is not a criticism, it was just that time was against us with the number of people present and there were many other things on the agenda that were discussed too. I was certainly waving my hand a few times but there was too much competition! I think the whole meeting time could easily have been spent on one discussion item. The other thing is, I think a lot of people enjoy competition and like to be competitive - I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Another height might be dominated by collies (like KC Medium and Large) but might also open competitive agility up to a greater diversity of dogs? Why shouldn't this height have it's own qualifiers and championships? There are models in other countries, that compete successfully at FCI for example, where dogs compete for most of the year at their measured height (and these countries heights are not necessarily the same heights as FCI)and still are able to do the FCI qualifiers. And there are other organisations, like WAO with it's different heights that Mark was involved in setting up. I think you know I have smaller large collies, one just starting out. They are both athletic and fit and can jump KC large and I enjoy KC shows with them. But, like you, I also go to non-KC shows where they can jump what feels to me a more appropriate height, their work is so much smoother and they look more comfortable (there's that word again lol). I also do worry about the long terms effects of jumping high and like many other people I mostly train at a lower height. An awful lot for the KC sub-group to get their teeth into, if that's where the matter goes, as the reps indicated it might, and I know that people really appreciate that it is being discussed. Regards, Chris Garrett
ReplyDeleteHi Chris
DeleteThanks for your comment - there were a lot of people there and I didn't even see you until the end of the meeting :)
I think I'm easily scared LOL
It was good to hear about the new group the KC have created to look into some of these issues a bit deeper as although I can see it is logical that lower jumps may decrease impact there is also the speed issue as going faster will mean more impact too. There are some dogs out there that would do themselves a mischief if they didn't have to slow down a bit to concentrate on jumping. I have also been told many more horses are injured doing racing (over hurdles) than doing eventing (over large jumps). It is a minefield as I mentioned before and it is important to look more deeply at these things. Also to keep looking for improvements that will help as many areas as possible.
At the end of the day people must do what they believe is best for them and their dog and at the moment as you say people do have a choice not to go to KC if they believe jumping lower is better.
See you at the shows soon :)
OHB sounds like a good idea that should be considered. I personally think steaming ahead with a 4th hright without fully considering all the jump heights is wrong.
ReplyDeleteWe hear small and especially medium handlers complaining about small class size meaning most classes are combined, whilst large dog owners complain of excessively large (especially at the lower grades) class sizes, and small large dogs who struggle.
This all makes me think that all three heights should be reconsidered, as should an option for heavier set LARGE large dogs.
I didnt get a chance to say that at the meeting as the subjject was changed before it came to my turn to talk.
One other thing that I didnt agree with was that on the only slightly controversial votee (4th height) the for and against votes were counted, but not the abstentions (of which there were a reasonable number) I felt that gave a slightly biased recording of the actual feeling in the room.
A reasoned argument.I like OHB but you could always turn that around to OHA. One height above, meaning if your dog was successful at its height its handler could choose compete OHA.With 4 evenly spaced heights.
ReplyDelete