USDAA Cynosport Nationals experience

Last week Katrina and I drove the travel trailer to Louisville Kentucky for the USDAA Nationals. We have qualified many times before, but never have attended. I actually liked the idea of an indoor nationals, compared to the outdoor Scottsdale location, since both Skye and Rip do not run well in the heat, and with Scottsdale, it could easily have been in the 90's. As it turned out, the weather was perfect in Kentucky - probably no warmer than about 75, and it only rained a brief time on one day.

We elected to stay at a KOA campground instead of camping onsite for two reasons - the KOA was about $12 a day less, and the Louisville expo center could not guarantee that we would have full hookups - it was first come, first serve, and since we weren't planning on arriving until Tuesday afternoon, I didn't want to chance it. The campground turned out to be very nice with lots of trees and nature trails for walks with the dogs. Well, it was nice until the masses and their kids showed up anyway - more on that later.

So we arrived barely before check-in closed on Tuesday since one of the 2 main bridges over the Ohio? river in Louisville is closed for repairs, which put us in a 1hr+ traffic jam. Checkin was uneventful and we had a chance to setup our crates. We had 4 crates since Ice-man came along for the ride even though he wasn't competing. The crating area was a jam packed building and everyone was nearly on top of each other. This is a lot different than when we went to Tulsa for the AKC Nationals two years ago and had a 10x10 stall. Fortunately, my teammates donated some of their 4'x6' crating space to us and we had enough room for all 4 crates.

Rip was entered in the DAM Team events, as well as the Grand Prix Quarterfinals. Skye was entered in PVP Team events, and the Performance Steeplechase Semi-Finals as well as Performance Grand Prix Semi-Finals. Skye's teammate was Baby, and Rip's teammates were Sharon Murphy & Reo and Art Malott & Mischief (Missy).

Wednesday
Wednesday started the events for us, and we only had Gamblers on the schedule. So, I had 2 runs, and Katrina only got 1 run with Baby. Here is the course map:

This was an interesting course. It presented 2 distance challenges, but only 28 seconds to run the course. For every second (or fraction) over time, you lost 3 points. For every second under time, you got 1 extra point, up to 10.  The a-b-c/A-B-C challenge could be done for 10 points as a run-with (no distance) or do it as a distance challenge from the back side of the tunnel. So, handlers had to decide what to do - you could even skip the distance challenges altogether. This was a 1-2-3-5 scoring course, with the teeter worth 5.

For me, I got a little greedy, which is always the downfall of Gamblers. I tried the A-B-C-H distance challenge with Rip and he came out of the first set of 6 poles when I went behind the tunnel. I also tried the 1-2-3-4 distance with him and he turned back and backjumped #2. We did not end up with many points, as we were also 1.07 seconds over time which subtracted 6 points giving us only 13. My teammate Reo had an OK Gambler run for 24 points, but Art & Missy had a worse run than Rip and ended up with only 7 points, so we were near the bottom of the 175 total teams running - I think we were in 150th place or so.

For Skye, I had the same plan, but I intended on running with him at the a-b-c challenge. He did the first 6 poles, the jump, and missed the entry on the second set of 6 poles. I didn't remember, but I could have fixed it and earned the 10 points, but we just went on instead. I also incorporated the 1-2-3-4 challenge and Skye got it very nicely, but my timing was off and the buzzer went off when Skye was on the AFrame on the way out, so we lost 18 points by being way over time! Don't get greedy!!! Skye also ended up with just 13 points, but Baby had a good Gamblers run with 38 points to offset Skye's mess.

Thursday
We had Team Standard on Thursday as well as Perf GP Semi's for Skye. The Standard course wasn't too bad. Here is the map:

No real leadout was needed. Skye ran this first. Skye did look at the finish jump #19 after the AFrame, which I didn't expect, but I got him into the tunnel fine. We were going great but coming out of the tunnel before the #12 teeter, I didn't give him a very good line, and he fell off the side of the teeter. I put him back on it, but he missed the up contact in the process. We finished the rest of the course OK and ended up with just the 7 points worth of faults.

For Rip, he started out a little worried since the leash-runner came right up to me to get his leash. Rip hates having people behind him at the start and got concerned with ears pinned back and all. I got him going fine and he was slow over the AFrame (again worried because the judge was right next to the frame) but once in the tunnel, he shot out like a cannon! We got through the rest fine up until that darn tunnel to teeter section! I stood closer to the tunnel exit than I should have, to make sure he didn't offcourse the #16 jump but my position sent him right to the weaves. I screamed his name and he stopped just short of entering the poles and came over to the teeter and we continued on fine. He had a really fast dogwalk and we finished with just the 2 point refusal fault.

For our teams, Baby had a great run in Standard and was clean with no faults. This moved us up quite a bit in the standings - maybe 40th place out of 120?
Rip's teammates also got through without any 'E's though everyone had some faults. Still, we moved up to around 100th place, up from 150th.

Skye ran the PGP semi-finals but we ended up with an offcourse. I tried to do a rear-cross at a 180 turn and Skye looked at me like 'Huh?' and went right around the jump. In Grand Prix, you need to be clean, so I didn't bother to bring him back and fix it and just continued with the 'E'. They were not calling fault limits, so anyone that 'E'd a course still got to run it all the way through.
Here is the map from PGP. The problem jump was #13 and he went around the right side of it and then onto #14.

Friday
We had team Snooker on Friday, along with Grand Prix quarterfinals for Rip, and Perf Steeplechase semi-finals for Skye.

Here is the snooker map:

I was happy to see that we could only do 3 of the reds. It gives too much advantage to the really fast dogs if they can do all 4 reds, so this leveled the playing field a bit. The time allowed of 46 seconds isn't enough to get really aggressive with Skye - I was concerned that if I tried to go for too many points that we would end up with the buzzer while doing #7 in the close.
Also, since the #7 was jump/AF/jump, with that enticing tunnel under the frame, I elected to stay away from it. Both of my dogs would have a really good chance of grabbing an offcourse tunnel and ending our run early if I tried it.

For Skye, the conservative plan was 5+5+6 in the opening. Other than slipping and almost landing on the ground between the first 5 and the second 5, everything went great and we got all the way through the closing.

For Rip, the plan was for 6+6+6 in the opening. It went really smooth and we got all the way through #6 in the closing! When doing the 7 in the close, Rip took the jump but then shot into the tunnel under the frame (I knew that was a chance!)

For my teams, as it turned out, everyone but me had trouble with this course. Katrina and Baby got 1 point as Baby went behind her and took a jump she wasnt expecting. Rip's teammate Reo also got 1 point - they were going for 7's and after the first jump in the 7, Reo took the tunnel (see! Danger!). I didn't see Mischief run, but she at least got through #4 in the closing. Our team placements suffered after Snooker. I didn't tell Katrina that had she completed her plan, we would have been in 20th place, but instead were about 65th place.


Rip got to run the Grand Prix quarters next. This is the course:

The course was a little tricky. He went wide after #5 as though he didn't see the tunnel, but went in OK. The obvious tricky area was around 9 through 14. There were a lot of obstacles in close proximity with multiple direction changes. This one caught us, and after jump #10, I thought I had Rip's attention for the tunnel but he started up the dogwalk behind me. Whistle! I did get him and put him in the tunnel, and then we finished it up clean. He really ran nice, but you cant be getting offcourses! Unfortunately, Katrina was busy staring at the snooker ring next to this one and didn't watch us or film us.


At the end of the day, around 5:30pm, Skye got to run the Perf speed jumping semi's. The course was made for fast dogs and I knew this would be trouble for us as we can accel more at handling type courses. Here is the course:

We ran this clean without any bobbles and I was trying to push Skye to go fast. We ended up with a time about 36.1, but the real fast performance dogs were turning in times in the 30.x's. Once you factor the 15% average, the qualifier cutoff was around 35.1 so we didn't make it. I was still happy with his run - he did a great job.

Saturday
For us, Saturday was the last day of competition. Sunday is for team and GP finals which we were not in.
Saturday's team jumpers course was really challenging, and though I don't have the exact numbers, this course proved really tough for the bigger dogs with about 1/3 of the competitors getting an "E".
Here is the map:

The line from jump #3 to #4 caused many of the issues. Dog after dog took the #9 offcourse. The other biggest problem area was jump #16, as it was a slice and the dog's momentum tended to put them past the plane. Lots of dogs missed taking #16 altogether and shot into the tunnel.

I am proud to say that both Skye and Rip ran this well with just 1 bar down. I ran it conservatively for Rip, though I wish I had pushed a little more as it was a good course for him. I did a blind cross after the tunnel and he knocked #18.

For Skye, I got momentarily lost around 5-6-7, and this caused the #7 jump to get knocked. I did regain my senses and we continued on and ran the rest clean.

For my teams, Baby also ran this with just 1 bar knocked. This helped move us back up a bit in the standings and we finished in 43'rd place out of 120 teams.  In the woulda-coulda-shoulda category, had Katrina finished her Snooker plan, we would have been in 16th place. They took just 12 Performance teams into the finals, so we still would not have made it, but we were really close and a better Gambler performance from me & Skye could have pushed us up even further. Ahhh if only!

On the other hand Rip's teammates did not fare well in this course. I saw Reo take the #14 triple after the #6 jump, so E for them. I didnt see Mischief's run, but she also earned up the 'E'. Surprisingly the two Es only moved our team placement marginally, and we ended up in 122nd place of 170. Not great, but not really near the bottom. Rip had the strongest performance on his team with no E's!
In the woulda-coulda-shoulda scenario for Rip's team - if the other 2 dogs performed exactly the same as Rip did, we would have ended up in 57th place.


Here's Rip's runs:


And Skye's:


Summary

In summary I would say our first USDAA Nationals was a successful event. I was not too nervous and I think my dogs ran really well.
Rip and Skye both hit every single contact! Other than Gamblers, they had perfect weave performances, and both dogs only knocked 1 bar (Rip knocked the start bar for snooker but it didnt count for anything :)

Next year, USDAA Nationals is right near home in Denver, outdoors in October. This can be risky - it could easily be cold with some snow, but I am planning on attending and deal with what nature brings us!

Three dogs, three rings, three days!

Last weekend I went to the FRAAD AKC show at the Castle Rock fairgrounds. It's a 3 day show and on Saturday and Sunday, there are 3 rings with 3 judges. Lots of people and lots of conflicts with all the rings. The fact that two rings are indoors and one is outdoors, out of view from the indoor rings, really doesn't help.

I got to run Baby for my wife as well this weekend since she had to attend a Nosework instructor event in Denver. Baby moved to Preferred this year when she turned 10, and she hasn't done a lot of AKC, so going into this show, she still needed 3 Double Qs (after Katrina just got her 3 Double Qs a week ago) to qualify for the AKC Nationals for next year. With only 2 months left in the qualifying period, the pressure was on to help out with those Double Qs. As it turned out, Baby was rockin the house and ran 6 awesome runs, getting ALL THREE of those last Double Qs!

As for my dogs, I am really pleased with how they did.

Skye had a smoking weekend too, and ended up going 7 for 10, also getting 2 Double Qs himself!
We ran FAST all three days as well as our first official T2B class on Saturday. Skye managed to get one of the FAST send's - distance work isn't our strong suit!
His only other NQ run was a Standard course where he missed the dogwalk contact. The dogwalk was the 2nd to last obstacle and he just jumped it and went over the finish jump. That was his only missed contact of the weekend.
I am working to qualify Skye for AKC Nationals too - he now has plenty of Double Qs (you need 6 in the qualifying period) and of the 400 points required, we now have 393! I looked at my records and we didn't do as many AKC shows this year as in years past. With this show, we have now attended just 8 AKC shows for the year, but Skye's consistency has gone up so we almost have those points already. I looked at his averages and he's getting an avg of 10.7 points per JWW run, and 17.5 points per STD. So, I need just one more JWW Q to be all wrapped up.

As for Rip, he had a lot of really great runs this weekend. He only ended up with 3 of 10 Qs, but he was really close on a few of those.
He got two Qs in Exc. B JWW, and that now gives us 7 JWW Qs. This is a huge accomplishment considering how he used to knock a bar in almost every jumpers run. He has also been running really fast and has greatly improved his speed in the weaves. On Sunday, he ran an Exc. JWW course in 23.5 seconds.
Also on Sunday, Rip ran a fabulous STD run but knocked the very last bar. He had slipped in the loose dirt and try as he may, he just didn't have enough to clear it. That run was done in just 38 seconds.
One of his STD runs had a bad approach to the dogwalk that I didn't manage enough, and he hit one stride on the up ramp and continued off the side of it. In his other NQ'd Standard run, I made a handling error by calling Rip off a jump before he took it - I was worried about the offcourse tunnel after the jump so I gave him a turn cue too soon - but kudos to Rip for coming off that jump! Then he took an offcourse jump out of a tunnel because I assumed he would turn towards me when exiting the tunnel - never assume!
Rip also got to run 3 FAST courses and he also Q'd the very same course that Skye Q'd. The other two were close but no-go, and in Friday's, he actually got the send bonus but the buzzer went while we were trying it. In his first T2B course, he ran great with just 1 bar down
So Rip hit every single contact that he was given an opportunity to hit. Yes!!

I've put a video of some of Rip's runs together here:

ADCH or MACH, what's tougher to get?

So Nicki at Borderblog asked a question on one of my posts, since I do both USDAA and AKC agility, what is tougher to earn - USDAA's ADCH championship, or AKC's MACH championship.

From the engineer in me, the answer is the MACH, since it requires more Q's:

ADCH = 5 Standard + 5 Jumpers + 5 Gamblers + 5 Snooker (3 superQs) + 5 Pairs + 5 Tournament (2 GP + 2 Steeplechase + 1 Team)

MACH = 20 Double Q's (20 Standard + 20 JWW on the same day) + 750 points.

However, I really don't think it's that simple.

First, an interesting tidbit about my dog Skye - he earned his MACH in July '10, and less than 2 months later, he earned his ADCH (in Performance, which is actually called PDCH). In Colorado, we have about twice as many AKC shows as we have USDAA shows, so then in theory, the MACH was tougher to get because we had many more tries at it.

Skye is a medium fast dog, which helps him be more consistent. In AKC, the Double Q requires consistency, but you can't be real slow and consistent or you will earn your Double Q's far faster than the 750 speed points. When Skye got his MACH, he had about 800 speed points, so the requirements tracked along pretty equally for us. I don't have any stats on how many agility days of competition it took us to put 20 Double Qs together, but I do know that we had about 28 total Standard Q's, so only 8 times we got a Standard Q and did not get a JWW Q to go along with it. We Q JWW more often than Standard, and as of right now, Skye has 43 total Standard Qs and 55 total JWW Qs (and 11 Double Qs toward the next MACH)

Now, a super fast dog may earn lots of speed points when they are clean, but at lightning speed, they are far more likely to end up offcourse. It can be a real challenge for a super fast dog to get a double Q!

So, where consistency pays dividends in AKC, it's not so much a requirement in USDAA. 

There is no requirement that you need to get multiple Qs in a day for USDAA. Also, in some of the events you MUST beat the competition in order to Q, especially in Snooker, so you tend to push a bit harder. 

The 5 Standard and 5 Jumper Qs that you need are stand-alone - ie earn them when you can, and on your own as long as you are under standard course time.

In Gamblers, you need a dog that is trained to work away from the handler. This can be a big challenge for small dogs, who tend not to excel at distance challenges, and for some big dogs too. Skye is a 'clingy' dog who doesnt like to work away from me, so getting 5 Gamble Qs was tough for us, and in fact, to complete our PDCH, we were waiting on that last Gamble.

In Pairs, it's required that both you and your partner get through your half of the course without going offcourse. You are allowed to be 'sloppy' and drop bars, miss contacts, re-do weaves, etc. as long as you are fast enough to overcome the penalty points that are added to your time when you are not clean. You also must have 5 different pairs partners, so its the luck of the draw!

Now Snooker is a strategy game that gives a lot of people fits. You have to make a plan that will give you at least 37 points, and for 3 of the 5 Qs you need, you must place in the top 15% of the class. This means that you will often be trying for many more than 37 points, and you are increasing your chances of failure to get those points! If you compete in an area with very skilled, fast competitors, you will definitely have your work cut out to beat them and be in the top 15%. Snooker requires you to be able to run past obstacles without taking them, and generally run around with a course that doesnt make a lot of sense to the dog. 

For Skye, since he is a 'clingy' boy, Snooker is easier for us - he is not looking to take other obstacles other than what I am indicating. We have more USDAA Q's in Snooker than in anything else, and about half of our Qs are Super Qs (the Performance classes are smaller, so its easier than the Championship classes)

Finally, you need what USDAA calls Tournament Qs. 

You need to get 2 Grand Prix Q's, which are essentially Standard without a table. You have to run clean in these and you dont need to worry about your competition.

You also need to get 2 Steeplechase Q's, which is a speed course with an AFrame and Weaves, one of which you will do twice, along with jumps, tunnels and the broad jump. In Steeplechase, you are allowed to be 'sloppy' again, and drop bars and miss contacts as long as you are fast enough with the penalty points. You must again beat your competition to Q - the top 3 dogs' times are averaged together, and then 25% more time is added to that total to come up with the cutoff time for a Q. A moderately fast dog can get a Q as long as they run clean. 

You also need 1 DAM Team Q, which is a team of 3 dogs (2 dogs for Performance) who compete individually for points. Those points are added together using some multiplier formulas. The last event of Team is the Relay race. As long as your teammates do not go offcourse, everything is scored with time+faults. An offcourse is an E, and gets you zero points for that event. Consistency does pay off in the Team events.

Ahhhh, so what is the final answer to the question? 

I think an ADCH is Tougher to get for the average dog, as it requires many more skills than just the consistency of AKC. In USDAA, you have to run faster, be able to work at a distance, be able to run past obstacles, be able to pair with other people, and be able to come up with your own strategic course in Gamblers and Snooker.

The courses in USDAA also are often more challenging than AKC, with sharper jump angles and such.

Owners of super fast dogs will probably say that a MACH is tougher, because that consistency doesn't come easy, and they can get the USDAA Q's here and there, as well as not having to be clean for many of them.

So, opinions anyone? That's my take on it!