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.