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Tuesday, October 23 2012

Flygility at the biggest dog event the country has ever seen.

By Raewyn Saville on Tuesday, October 23 2012, 15:28 - Dog Sports

Last Friday was the opening day for NZ Dog Agility Championships,which was held this year in Cambridge and hosted by the Kennel Club Zone 1. The Committee who organised this event were drawn from Auckland through to the Waikato and they must have worked incredibly hard because just looking at the organisation on Friday the Event was set up with huge precision. This year has the biggest registrations ever with 4,247 runs to be had by 572 dogs over four days from Friday to Monday inclusive of Labour weekend. The Dog Sports involved are Agility, Jumpers and Flygility. Agility of course being by far the big attraction, Jumpers is the new Kennel Club Sport and Flygility is a non-Kennel Club sport which has been lucky enough to be invited to participate over the last six or seven years.

I had, earlier this year agreed to be a Judge for the Flygility Component of the Competition held on the Friday prior to all the main events. I had previously helped with organisation of Flygility for NZDAC in Taupo, so I sort of knew what it entailed.

A few months ago three of us got together and decided we would give the Flygility Teams Competition a crack. We reckoned we had the dogs to do it in my Chan, Hilary's Jay and Judy's Tui. Both Tui and Jay are exceptionally fast. Chan is very reliable and can be remarkably quick and has the most experience of all three dogs. So we did a fair bit of practice. We met every Wednesday for quite a few weeks, honing our dogs' skills and mostly making them enjoy working together. The Teams is a relay and the cross over from one dog to the next is the way to make up time. So we really worked on overlapping our dogs at the start line. It was great fun. We bonded, the dogs bonded and we had a pretty good time going by the time we got to the Competition. We could do an Intermediate Course with the three dogs in about 26 seconds, so we thought we were in with a chance.

On the day, the dogs were happy, no injuries, we were all fit and ready to go. We made short work of the first two heats. At the third heat it was a bit tighter but we won outright. Then the semi finals and we went to three races - they won one, we won one and then we won no. 2. So to the finals. We had been watching the team we eventually came up against in the finals and we knew they were dangerous. They too had obviously been practicing.

They won the first race, oh darn, we won the second race - by quite a bit - I had changed Chan's position in the team from third to first as he is more motivated in first place running. During the semi finals he had bitten down on his lip when catching the ball and was bleeding and probably sore, so all the motivation he could get was going to help now. So one all. The final race. Chan went out and came back just a nose ahead of his opposing dog, Tui went out and was well ahead of the dog in the other team, until she got to the box with the ball in it and then she was distracted and forgot the ball, Hilary had accidentally called Tui's name while yelling motivation from the start line, and it was enough to put her off apparently. Jay went out but even though we were first over the line we lost because of the mistake and were Runners-up out of 21 of the best teams of three from around NZ.

The others were disappointed but hey we nearly did it. We missed the Ian Gray Trophy but the ribbons and prizes were wonderful. I thought we did magnificently and the best team won. The team that stuck to its game plan and followed through. My heartiest congratulation to Alan Harrison and his partner Monica running their two dogs, plus Janine Smith and her heading dog Gem, Wonderful competition and more fun than I have had in an age.

We have told them to watch out for us next time.... I was pretty happy anyway as I had been given a lovely jacket with NZDAC2012 on it and 'JUDGE'. How cool is that. Alan Harrison reckoned I had to forfeit the jacket to him because we lost the teams - no way bro, you stick to your trophy, I'll stick to my jacket.

Good banter, good fun. That's dog competition for you.

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Wednesday, September 5 2012

Training today

By Raewyn Saville on Wednesday, September 5 2012, 21:54 - Dog Handling

September 6th Dog Training

A dodgy day by the weather as it has been for the last few days. We were mega lucky to get our Dog Sports Games Day done without Rain last Sunday, Monday was touch and go, Tuesday was very up and down however, Kelly and I managed to get in a bit of training, with Jake doing very well. He is at the stage where he will decide whether or not he should do three hurdles in a row or just run around the last one or the second to last one. This is about normal after four intensive weeks of training for agility where he has hardly missed a beat in spite of three good sessions per week. He is learning that he can make decisions and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Wednesday is the day that Hilary and Jay, Judy and Tui and Me and Chan practice for our upcoming teams event at NZDAC Fly. I always look forward to it. However taking priority is the Flygility Tournament planned for the Raceway at Paradise Valley this weekend. It will probably be the only opportunity to get a bit of leg work for the dogs before next Sunday, so a bunch of us, including Chris and Louise started at Beginners level and worked our way to Advanced with weaves, it was great. Becki-boo is good at Seniors level as long as there are no weaves. I am not convinced she will ever cope with weaves in Flygility. I might be wrong but I wonder if I will have the time to put in to make it happen. Chan does a great weave, although he does struggle when he is competing against someone in the next lane which is a pity, but last Tournament at Tokoroa, he actually competitively weaved. If I got the poor dog out to more competitions it would help immensely, he is definitely under campaigned, but my priority is as always, training other people.

Both Chris' dogs are performing to level, which is Intermediate at present. Both Hilary's dogs are performing to Seniors without weaves, and coping with open weaves in an Advanced set. Louise's Riley did Advanced with regular weaves today with her off course. In a nutshell he did his first free weaving in a course and completed the whole thing to perfection. Her face was radiant. Judy's two, Lazer and Tui both worked all the way to Advanced looking very comfortable and with a good pace.

So weather permitting we should have a bonny day next Sunday and bring home some ribbons and dog food between us. However, the weather forecast for the weekend is pretty grim, I do hope they are wrong because we really want to give our first day at the Stock Car grounds a good trial, we will need to use it a lot in the future so we need to know it is workable and the Stock Car people need to see us in action as well.

The big act of course for our Club is transporting all the gear to the Grounds and back at the end of the day, it is actually so much easier to have the gear right where you need it. Back in the bad old days when I started Flygility in Rotorua, we were not allowed to hold tournaments on Kennel Club Grounds because Flygility sanctioned jumping 12 month old dogs and I had to transport gear to various District Council Reserves to hold Tournaments, so this coming weekend definitely brings back 10 year old memories. I hope it doesn't happen too often, I am getting too old for this stuff.

Tomorrow is my social agility class in the morning plus picking up the Trailer being borrowed from George and Carolyn Mear for the transporting. Fortunately Hilary and Chris are keen to help on Friday with some transporting so we can set up our courses, and no doubt our club will pull together to make it all work on Sunday. At least we now have 13 very committed Flygiliteers willing to pull their weight. The Club committee is also tops at supporting Sports Days and never sayes no to the purchase of extra gear or any organisational needs. The Raffle to pay for the Grounds use for the day is looking spectacular with donations from club members. We have a sports umbrella, a back pack, dog toys galore, dog treats galore, a gorgeous handmade pottery border collie, a border collie coffee mug and all sorts of bits and bobs. Masterpet have donated a great prize as well and their packs of biscuits are so welcome to make prizes for the winners of the races. The ribbons are ready, so it is all go.

Don't know how much blogging I will get done in the next couple of days, but it is something I try to do each day as a bit of a diary. However, farm work, orchard work, housework, and my caregiving stuff does need time as well...... not to mention food prep, I just love cooking so it takes a bit of time.

Raewyn Saville 5-9-2012

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Thursday, August 16 2012

The many Tiers of Agility/Activities for Dogs

By Raewyn Saville on Thursday, August 16 2012, 16:54 - Dog Handling

Just recently one of my fellow club members at Dog Sports was trying to figure out what she had paid for that allowed her to do what Agility Competition work and where, and what was the difference between prepay Champs and pay on the day Ribbon Trials, and how come she paid on the day for Flygility mostly and then the NZDAC comes along and she has to pay in advance.

I remember twenty years ago that I had similar mental blanks around trying to organise my competition schedule and fit in NALA as well.

I simply don't do most of it any more but I need to know how it works as I train a lot of people and a bunch of them will want to go on to compete..

This is how I think it works, but hey if someone out there sayes I have got some of it wrong, I would be delighted to be corrected as I really want to pass on the right stuff.

When you turn up at a Club for Dog Training you may do an Obedience or Control class for a while to get your dog turned on to listening and working and waiting and coming and basically doing things you want him to do. You will pay for this training either as a block of lessons or one by one as we do at Dog Sports. At Dog Sports Rotorua, new handlers and dogs go into Control class and stay there till they can work comfortably off lead around the equipment. All equipment is taught as an individual item along with a bit of heel work, recalls and stays. During this time you will probably be asked to be a Club Member and pay a subscription to the Club, in our case $20 per annum. We all also pay $2 per week in green fees as rent to the landlord. If you train every week you will figure out that over twelve months you have paid $90 in green fees. However if you don't train you don't pay which we think is fairer than charging a huge subscription to meet the rent bill. Your $20 subscription allows use of the Agility Equipment and gives the Club a fund for maintenance, repair and replacement, which when around 50 people a week are using gear, is a necessity. You will continue to pay your training fees as you progress.

When you are doing well and have been training consistently for six months plus, now this does vary with individual handlers and dogs, Some are really rapid through the system and others need more time because they can't come every week or twice a week, you should be starting to participate in free Club Agility Class and try the NALA courses with the group from your Club that do this each month. NALA is National Agility Link Association and is approx 26 years old. Every month every member receives a book which has the results from previous competition, editorial discussing various Agility and flygility and Rally-O events from around New Zealand. The new courses for this month are in there. It is separate from the Kennel Club, Flygility Association and Rally-O NZ, but aligned

so far as rules  are concerned.  Joining this group costs $27 ish per annum and is wonderful for new people to get a feel for competition as it mimics what happens on the day in terms of course setting, course walking, and completing courses.

Once people are doing Flygility with NALA and a bit of other practice in lanes to get dog used to running next to another dog, I like to get them out to a Flygility Tournament. If there don't seem to be any in the offing, I will encourage our Club to run a few through the year to meet this need.You do not need to be a member of the NZFlygility Dog Association to run at competitions and win ribbons and dear Allan Rohde keeps all the records of all the dogs that compete whether or not they are members. However, everytime you win a best of three, you get a point. If you want those points to count towards a title then you need to be a member of the Association. There is many the handler on their first outing who has no intention of joining the Association, who on winning a couple of points through shear beginners luck, is so bitten by the Flygility bug, they join up immediately. This will cost $7.50 per annum and when you turn up at a Tournament you pay for your entries to each race at $3 a pop.

Of course most people want to do real Agility so when they are ready our Club takes them off to a Ribbon Agility somewhere near. When you attend a Ribbon you pay your entries on the day. Our Club is non-affilliated to the New Zealand Kennel Club, so that although we train to Kennel Club Standard with Agility we cannot run Ribbon or Champ shows.

When our members are running clear rounds at Ribbon Agility we encourage them to join a Club that is affilliated so that they can become Kennel Club Members which is quite expensive, but valuable to those who really want to compete at the top level. Champ shows are advertised in the Kennel Club Gazette and entered well ahead of the date and pre payed. Also ADs are advertised, sometimes being run at Ribbon Agility but they still need to be prepaid. AD rounds are to achieve titles for your dog, two clear ADs and your dog becomes Fido AD and two more, if my memory serves me well, and Fido becomes ADX or Agility Dog Excellent. This goes on to Ag Champ and Ag Gr Champ. If you want to achieve at this level you must be prepared to travel around New Zealand and follow the shows and sink your life into your dog, its training and its achievements.

It is totally possible to achieve all the titles with a bit of work and a lot of dedication. Please please, anyone who reads this feel free to add to or subtract or tell me I am right or wrong so I can make sure that we have the whole layered thing out there for people to understand.

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