Making the Grade

There have been some great and interesting posts relating to how competing at KC Agility does or rather doesn't prepare Agility Team GB for the FCI AWC.

I thought I'd throw my thoughts in. These are MY thoughts and are not necessarily a reflection of people in the know who I know ;)

It's great we have the opportunity to discuss and consider how to ensure we are best prepared. 

My first point is whether the AWC is in fact a specific event that no other country has full preparation for amongst their own national competitions either.

Lets think about the number of spectators and the full focus of agility in one stadium. 

Cruft's is one of the biggest dog shows in the world. Having an opportunity to compete there under pressure must be one of the closest events to AWC. 

Yes the area is smaller but it is intense. There is a tight time scale and you need to be on the ball to perform at your best there. From a dog's point of view I would say that AWC gives the dogs more space to get to the start line.

Then there is Olympia which is not comparable to any other major agility event. The atmosphere is electric, loud and everything is rushed through. Walking courses as the equipment is put out and then being on the start line in a matter of minutes.

I am not aware of major large crowd events in other countries that can give their competitors such preparation for high pressured events. To me having these KC run events to compete at are a major advantage.

Courses 

The majority of other countries do compete under FCI rules regularly. 

My thoughts are the judges will be setting courses to identify World Champions as opposed to their usual day to day competitions. I image that our Champ judges will have a different spec for their champ courses than judging normal classes. Some competitors from other countries have said the World Championship courses are different to what they compete on too.

Agility Team GB are given a lot of information about the current years judges trends and will set up and practice all they can. An example is the weave entry that featured in a few courses and all our dogs achieved without any problem this year.

We don't compete/train on carpet 

The Cruft's carpet used this year is the same as was used in the Czech Republic.

Many other countries have similar facilities to us in that they are mainly outside on grass but there are countries who have many indoor astro turf facilities. 

Astro turf will be a constant surface for the dogs to run on whereas grass can vary considerably. It will also effect the handlers performance as we will run differently too.  

So for me this is a big one and one that could be a factor in who were winning this year. 

We have been to an indoor competition in Germany a couple of years ago and throughly enjoyed it. It was over New Year so didn't eat into Mark's holiday too much either. It's on again this year and I'd recommend it to anyone as an experience to add to your knowledge of how you and your dog run competitively on FCI courses on that surface.

I think there is also a great Sheltie competition and happy to link anyone up to the people in the know about it.

Judges don't set up course that allow our dogs to open up and develop speed.

Wow this is major in many ways. 

From a new judge prospective this is yet another criticism being aimed at our judges who turn out in all weathers so we have competitions to go to. Why will this encourage me to continue to judge?

At a recent event in the UK where FCI judges were it was noted that they used a different course entirely for each class they judged even if they just did 2 classes. The ring party were a bit put out. 

Judging several classes in one ring in one day using the same layout does not lend itself to creating fast, flowing and technical courses easily.

Seven grades equals seven different levels of complicity.

As far as I know countries competing under FCI rules only have 3 levels A1, A2 and A3.

So for me if there is one area that definitely needs changing it is the grading system.

It is one of the major factors that stunts the development of the speed in our young dogs and the way we run them.

It cuts people off from seeing the really great dogs and handlers run until they are amongst them and it is demoralising instead of being inspirational. Watching a great performance should encourage you to:

1. believe it can be done and 
2. want to emulate it.

Talented young partnerships have to win so many classes to get to the top but the small number of dogs in the class creates a stronger need to be clear than to be fast. 

If success is determined by being in the top grade then in this country choosing the right shows means clear rounds will get you up the grades and speed is a secondary consideration.

Everyone will have their own anecdote of what has stopped them from being the best and we can all blame the system. 

We do have amazing dogs, handlers, judges and competitions in this country and our structure gives us many choices. 

Overall it is up to us to have the confidence of our own dreams and take action to achieve them. 

We can choose to run eye balls out on every run, choose speed first and foremost until the accuracy improves.

Back to this years AWC nobody can deny these deserve to be large World Champions

Sadly I can't find the medium or small runs as they were just as amazing - sometimes you just need to be there ;)

Next year it's Sweden - just saying.

Timing is Everything

Wow the season has definitely started here in the Laker household.

After a couple of back to back seminars my own Sports Psychology skills have certainly been revised.

Our own dogs have started the season looking amazing. Even though Crufts didn't go to plan the boys looked very fit. (Searched 'looking fit' on google and thought yes this will do 😉)

Mark and I both have young dogs at the same time which is something we haven't done before. Plus with one in a different height there is loads of learning to do.

On top of that I started judging last year and have had a couple of judging appointments this year already. 

I know the rules and keep abreast of any changes for myself as a competitor. It is a different ball game for me to focus on these rules whilst watching 100's of dogs for a whole day.

Becoming a judge involves a couple of days training to earn your certificate. With quite a few others attending there is no way to practice or test the mental stamina that is required.

And then there is the things that you couldn't anticipate happening and how to deal with them. 

Lastly there is nothing to prepare you for the slating that you will receive on social media if you do happen to make a mistake.

Luckily I had two appointments back to back and was able to experience a more normal judging day with good decisions this weekend. That has strengthened my resolve to become a good judge.

I have spoken to a senior, experienced, long standing judge about my decision at Wyre to restart the class due to a timing issue and allow the first few competitors to re-run from scratch. Once I explained the situation she totally agreed with my decision. 

Whether the decision was right or not matters a lot to me - I would not deliberately do anything to give any competitors an unfair advantage.

To be fair in the grand scheme of life if the decision had been wrong bleating about it on Facebook is not the way forward. Any judges walking the course could have easily approached me about the timing gates BEFORE the class had started or somebody could have recorded it in the incident book for future learning.

An Honest Mistake

I would rather it hadn't happened but I am trying my best and learning with every appointment. The worst that happened was one person qualified for an event that their first run might not have. (I say might not as they only had 5 faults the first run and a dog with 5 faults did qualify anyway) 

What a lovely bonus for them to have a second chance after doing a near perfect round with one jump down on the first attempt. 

What a bonus for a few people to have another go at the course. Who can begrudge a few G1-3 handlers having another chance? 

Hats off to the ring party who dealt with it all so well too.

Those capable of qualifying will no doubt have other qualifiers this season and if not I do apologise as I would have to your faces had you spoken directly to me.

This weekend we had the opposite where a lovely lady and her happy dog did a beautiful clear only to find out the timing didn't work. On her re-run the dog had the first pole down. She was disappointed as anyone would be. We're hoping her bad luck with that will turn around for good luck next week in a qualifier she's going to. Meanwhile they did another beautiful run in a later class gaining a high place and I'm confident we'll see more of that partnership.

My forte in judging is my course design. I love setting a course that will assess a dog's key skills and the handlers understanding of the dogs path to get the fastest route.

Wyre was a real challenge as the rings are quite a bit smaller. I spent hours setting up our own equipment in our field, moving it around and running various dogs around it or parts of it to get it right.

I needed a course that met the new distances, all the other KC rules and was of course safe. 

On top of that minimum movement of equipment to keep the different classes running through smoothly. 

Ring party, show organisers and least of all competitors do not really want to be at a show past 6:00pm at the latest. 

Those that thought I should have rebuilt the course and got everyone to re-walk it may not have appreciated that I simply did not have another planned G1-3 course ready to fit all the above criteria and it would add at least another hour  to the end of the day. 

As one of our friends likes to say - 300 million people didn't die. However if I was not such a determined person then my judging career could have.

Luckily for me this weekend at Agility Nuts Show my courses ran as I'd designed them and I received many compliments on my courses. I felt I kept my focus for over 90% of the time and am confident my contact calls were right. 

I had 2 scribes that were also judges that if I had any blips of confidence were there smiling and encouraging - thank you Natalie and Anne. 

We had a dog walking over the long jump that we looked in the book to clarify our decision on and I know that one for next time too.

I've still got 2 judges appointments to do this year and I'm looking forward to them.

How our dogs did will need to wait for another post now but I'm very happy to report Torro got 3rd in Veterans, Rhyme got a 2nd & a 3rd in G7, Devo got 3rd (when I was 2nd oh yes!!) and a 2nd (when I was 3rd normal business resumed), Moog got more and more experience and oh yes, Pikachu went clear and won the class.

She's smashed my targets for the year though so I now need to sit down and write some more or sit back and let the rest of the season drift about to see where it gets us ;)

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 ;)