Where are the USDAA small dogs?

I have three (rescue) dogs:

Scout is probably a Shiba/Kelpie Mix, 17" and 20.5#. She is an open dog, though one of the smallest.

Bug is a Chihuahua/Dachshund mix, 12.25" and 12.5#. He is a mini dog, jumping 16" in Championship.

Boo is a Chihuahua/Something mix, about 10" and 7#. He is in training.

Boo has been special needs since the day I brought him home. He was tranquilized for his neuter surgery, arrived dopey, and remained so for a week. He also refused to eat. And do his business outside. He's lucky that he's adorable.

I know there is the argument about the USDAA jump heights, as the little dogs would either jumpe 12"/16" Championship or 8"/12" Performance. This is part of the issue.

I had trouble with Bug popping weave poles. No one could tell me why, that is, until I came across a small dog person. "You're too close to him. He sees feet, and thinks you will step on him."

Therein lies the problem: Training the small dog in a world of BC-only instruction.

• How many agility seminars are given by people who train something other than a border collie?
  
• How many pictures in Clean Run are NOT of border collies?
• How many articles have you read that give specific training advice to a dog that isn't a border collie/sheltie/aussie?

USDAA
Technical courses with tight course times, the IHC flair, the long distance in gamblers.

AKC
Technical courses with generous course times, optional games.

Perhaps AKC appears to be a more viable option for the small dog handlers because the handler has difficulty applying large dog training into their small dog world.

This really bothers me, as I am having trouble training Boo, especially with fear of the teeter, and subsequently, the dogwalk. My class is a waste of both time and money. Oh, and the other fun thing about a small dog: other dogs want to eat them AND the other dog owner doesn't apologize.

Boo is a little fella living in a world of giants. I know he has it in him, but I need help unleashing his inner beast.

Blog Action Day Post: Thoughts on Volunteering

I am a software engineer. I work 40+ hours a week, in a cube next to a wall - a dead-end pathway. I plug away, having a little code fiesta at my desk with very little interaction with others. But, hey, it pays for my agility habit!

Since I work a lot, my time is very valuable to me. Attending agility trials becomes MY time: time for me, time for my dogs, and time to turn into a social butterfly. Working like a dog at a trial, especially after working like a dog at my job, can be unappealing. There are a lot of factors that determine whether or not I volunteer at a trial.

1. Most people like getting a paycheck, especially when it supports their agility addictions. Trial bucks are a great way of encouraging people like me to help. $2 here and there can add up to a free run or two. It's also a great way to get the volunteers to enter a future trial, as those bucks are burning holes in their pockets.
2. If a club is new and/or struggling, I will work. I selfishly want the club to continue having trials, and it's to my benefit to pitch in when needed.
3. If I am being or have been treated poorly, forget it.
   

I trial secretary for a club, and am rewarded with certificates for free entries. If you think it's a cake job, think again. You get tons of emails, phone calls, rules questions, and change requests. I also joke that I am a full-service trial secretary - I do all the paperwork, I'll score, and I bake goodies for the workers.

I am the chief scorekeeper for a small club. I get non-tournament entries in return for 1.5 dogs. I say 1.5 since one dog runs everything and one is nearing retirement. I really want this small club to be successful so I can continue playing with my dogs locally. I have score kept for a small club out-of-town as well, and I did it for lunch, and, well, the people were just so darn nice!

What prevents me from helping can be how the club, in general, behaves.

The Screech Owl
I used to travel to a particular trial in California frequently. However, it's difficult to even want to attend, much less volunteer, when you have venue-specific people "helping" at a venue that he/she doesn't like, especially listening to the screeching of how said volunteer is missing a great trial in his/her venue non-stop. This particular club also is known for being slow, as the course builders snarl at those willing to schlep equipment around.

The Beaten Dog
Another club has few members able to do scoring. I am asked to score. I spend the entire weekend running numbers like an accountant, away from my dogs and my friends. I am "rewarded" with trial bucks that don't even cover the cost of one future run, and no thanks. I do not volunteer for this club anymore. This is akin to running a course with your dog, and not playing with or treating your dog afterward.

The Yell-Off
Listening to the trial committee YELL constantly. Hey, when labor is either for a pittance or free, you get what you get. Don't yell at us! Kill us with kindness.

The Hostage Crisis
I blogged about being held hostage at a trial earlier.

The Clipboard Master
Someone who walks around, bossing others, demanding everyone pitch in, being ungrateful, yet all this trial committee person does is carry a clipboard. Does he set a bar? Nope. Does he help move the A-Frame? Nope. Does he even say "Thanks"? Nope.

The Hoarder
This happened to a friend of mine. She pole sat for a class that lasted for over an hour, and the volunteer coordinator wouldn't give her a raffle ticket unless she worked three classes.

The Winner
What tickles me the most is having someone come up and say, "Thanks for helping out. You're doing great." I think this is the best reward of them all. An email to the Yahoo Group thanking everyone is insufficient. Everyone likes when their boss tells them, "Job well done," and it's perhaps the BEST thing a club can do to encourage volunteers.

Learn Thy Rules

I hate admitting this as much as admitting that this is true: I am the walking USDAA rulebook.

I've read the rulebook (both the 2004 + modifications and the one that begins June 1), and can rattle off answers to a lot of questions. The ones that kill me the most are the Masters handlers who have competed with multitudes of dogs that ask, "How many points to qualify in snooker?" and those that can follow USDAA's titling requirement matrix.

I encountered another problem this weekend: Trying to stack the deck in snooker.

A competitor asked a long-time USDAA judge about the running order rules for Masters/PIII Snooker. The answer is that the order is randomized. You *may* space out dogs, but the dog can only move up in the running order. Question asked and answered. Done deal, right?

Wrong! The competitor cornered the inexperienced trial secretary to talk about the running order. The competitor is running a dog for someone else as well as this person's own dog. Since the other dog is known to mess up, the competitor wants the other dog to ALWAYS run first. I happened across the conversation.

I should preface this by saying that I've helped the trial secretary with the software and the rules in preparation for this trial. Both the judge and I told the trial secretary that Snooker is randomized, and WHY it's randomized, and that the order can only be changed by moving up. There is NO spacing between dogs guarantee - the ring will be held. The trial secretary was very understanding and receptive to help with the rules.

The competitor then got pissy when I rearranged the Veterans dogs. Once again, someone not familiar with the rules. The USDAA Veterans program is NOT COMPETITIVE. There are no real placements and no SuperQs, only Qs going toward Lifetime Achievement Award. Another competitor got pissy about it as well, telling me that eventually there will be SuperQs. Uh, no. It's non-competitive. Period.

There were a grand total of TWO Veteran Snooker dogs: one mini and one open. Once again, if competitors could, uh, actually read the rules, they would quickly learn that OPEN dogs are scored separately from MINI dogs.

It was awesome for USDAA to offer a Veterans program, but it's still a shame that handlers cannot fathom it not being a competition. At Nationals, it's called the "Veterans Showcase", and I like to think the same of the Veterans Program.

Please, familiarize yourself with the rules. You don't need to know all of them.

Dear Clean Run

The following is my letter to the editor of Clean Run regarding someone's letter.

Dear Clean Run,

I did take offense to seeing a breeder advertisement in Clean Run. Regardless of how accomplished and/or responsible the breeder is, Clean Run is NOT a purebred-only and breeding publication. If I want to see breeder ads, I can subscribe to AKC publications.

However, what I found more offensive are the rebuttal letters, namely So-and-So's comment regarding rescue dogs, “However many do it while suffering through health and structure problems.” Where are the numbers that back up this claim?

I never knew that all three of my rescue dogs (and mixes at that) are suffering health problems, while all those well-bred purebred dogs are not. There are plenty of “reputable” breeders breeding dogs with seizures, dogs unable to jump, luxating patellas, among other physical issues. I can name these dogs.

I have yet to meet a rescue dog that is one of these “many” unfortunate dogs mentioned. I do have a rescue with a collapsed trachea. That’s not poor breeding – that’s poor care before I got him. The other two are very healthy, including an 11.5 year-old who can still compete.

I am disgusted with the amount of pure hatred people have towards rescue dogs. I terminated a friendship when one person said, “All rescue dogs should be euthanized.”

Please cease perpetuating the rescue dog myths.

What I did glean from the letter writer is that she bought a dog from a backyard breeder (BYB), and had to retire the dog early due to physical problems. Here's what I don't get: How is this a rescue dog? You paid a shitload of money to "rescue" a puppy from a backyard. If your issue is with BYBs not giving a crap about the health of a dog, then say that! Don't lump all rescues in your diatribe. Dogs from reputable breeders end up with a rescue group or in the pound as well.

Foundation Work

Just open up any Clean Run magazine to find articles on "Foundation". All are about foundation for the dog. What about the handler?

I had an interesting conversation with my friend, Gail, this weekend about handling. We came to the same conclusion: Everything we needed to know about handling we learned growing up playing basketball.

Here are some basketball skills:
Pivoting
Passing
Running
Stopping
Working as a team
Reading body language
Hand/eye coordination

These are all important agility skills!

• In basketball, you always know where the ball is, but use your peripheral vision for movement from other players.
• In agility, you keep your eye on the dog.

• When you get the basketball, you either dribble, pivot, or shoot.
• Is a pivot any different than a front cross? No!

• Is passing or shooting a basketball any different than sending your dog out to an obstacle? No!

• Basketball is a lot of stop and go movement. Can you say "acceleration" and "deceleration"? I knew you could!

When I played basketball, I learned how to use my peripheral vision, see what was around me, and anticipate "things", like other players cutting through the lane, the recipient of the pass (since the passer usually looks at the recipient), who is going to shoot, etc. I do the same thing in agility. I walk a course. I see what my dog may see at each obstacle. I know if I twitch, my dog may react to the twitch by popping weaves or pulling off a jump. Yet most handlers blame the dog!

As a handler you are both the coach and a player. You guide your dog through the play. It is your job to anticipate the off-course potential. You send your dog on in gamblers. You snake your dog though a snooker. And you do this without flailing your arms and screaming.

It may be worth having a handler foundation class on a basketball court. A few bonks in the head by a basketball (trust me, it hurts), may be what some people need to get into the game.

Now this is a good Snooker

The following course is Tammi Stone's, ran at Happy Dog Agility on March 7, 2010.



Here's why I like it:

1. Three OF Four. Handlers must pay attention to the details.
2. The #7 Combo must be taken as marked.
3. The #7 Combo is NOT easy to handle.

Sure, you could go for all sevens - some people did. Most were not successful.

As for flow, the ONLY option I liked to enter #2 nicely into the closing was the #7 combo. There are two reds on the map (bottom reds) that open to either nothing, or no points. If you started with Red #2 (bottom right), it opened to some small points. I try to only do fives, sizes and sevens in 3-Red snooker. I discounted that strategy.

Other than all sevens or starting with a low value obstacle, I saw only one flow course with points: 6-6-7.
It was flow enough for both dogs to win their jump heights.

USDAA Performance Titles

Here's an excellent blog entry about the title names for USDAA's Performance program.

http://agilepooch.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/wackronyms-time-for-usdaa-to-join-us/