AKC agility courses

[mum24dog]

I've seen several comments that they are rubbish and just wondered in what way?

Is it because the courses have to be pre-approved and the house style is too prescriptive?

Do all organisations require courses to be pre-approved?

 

Here in the UK judges are free to set whatever course they consider suitable for the grade they are judging - no approval needed. Opinions will vary as to what is appropriate but the result is that some courses will suit some teams, while others will suit a different type so we get variety.

 

Some people would prefer more guidelines as to what course elements are appropriate at each level but most accept that dogs and handlers differ and the way we do it now suits everyone at least some of the time.

 

Judges who persistently set stupid or impossible courses just don't get asked to judge (unless show organisers are desperate).

 

It's my job to get judges for our shows (25 this June each with an average of 4 classes to judge) and I decide which classes to give them. What normally happens is that I'll go for a balance if I know some of them set easy or more challenging courses. One grade will get one of each type of judge in that case. Out of 4 runs a day most people are happy with that.

 

I'm always interested in how things work in other countries.

 

Pam

[Rave]

Personally I don't like them because they typically lack flow. Lots of wraps and cranking your dog around. Has nothing to do with the approval or level of challenge.

 

AFAIK, all org's here require courses to be pre-approved. That doesn't prevent judges from being unique or interesting, although there are certain trends that appear. NADAC is the only org here that doesn't allow judges to design their own courses anymore. They created a book of appropriate courses and judges just select which ones to use.

[Pat W.]

Here in the US the three main venues are known for certain types of courses 1) USDAA usually shoots for a balance of both open and flowing and technical the novice more open less techinical and it increases as you go up in level , Judges design and submit their own courses for approval 2) NADAC is known for its wide open run like your hair is on fire courses at almost any level, Judges select courses from a catalog for approval. AKC which I havent done in quite a while use to be pretty inconsistent in their design, they could be trappy, the were very ugly entries to contacts and weave poles. In short it was very hard to find flow in most courses. I do not know how they approved the courses

[mum24dog]

Personally I don't like them because they typically lack flow. Lots of wraps and cranking your dog around. Has nothing to do with the approval or level of challenge.

 

How do you think it has come about that that sort of course is typical of one organisation rather than another if it isn't dictated by the need to have courses approved? I'm just wondering where the influence has crept in.

 

We do have regional differences here and part of the reason is the number of dogs competing.

 

In the South courses are more often bat out of hell types (or so I'm told by my Southern friends) because it takes less time to get through the dogs. We have a limit of 450 dogs per judge per day but a ring can end up having more than one judge so more dogs to deal with. Expediency rather than choice dictates course layout.

 

In the Midlands and North numbers competing are a bit lower so there is a greater flexibility in type of course design.

 

In Scotland the shows are smaller and courses more often of the twist your dog in knots type, although they can still flow. They take longer because more mistakes are made and longer course times needed but with fewer dogs it isn't so much of an issue.

 

I can't speak for any organisation other than KC because there aren't any others covering the whole country in practice.

 

Pam

[Rave]

It came about by how the org dictated courses will be - courses will have so much of this and so much of that, e.g. X number of traps, Y number of discriminations, Z number of changes of side/direction. In the US, the types of courses vary by org as Pat states, since we have so many choices, each can have their own "flavor." Judges fly all over the US, so there's not certain trends in certain areas. And courses aren't picked or designed for the number of entries. What judges will do though is nest courses so that course changes are quick throughout the day.

[SS Cressa]

Seeing that I only compete in AKC agility for the last 2.5 years. I can't much say for the other oganizations. In AKC it depends on the judge. If anything you can generally tell what the judges "run" in agility by how they design their course or how often they are competing. I've heard AKC is more tight and technical. Where USDAA is open and faster they might have you do a 4 jumps in a row into a turn or something like that.

 

ETA: I know AKC only allows certain type of traps.

[Rave]

I was browsing through some course maps (here: http://www.agilitycoursemaps.com/) and noticed that ACK courses don't seem to be quite as bad as they used to. Although I have seen some recent videos of a friend running and those courses were still pretty twisty turning wrappy. So perhaps over time, ACK's courses have become less nasty. That's a good thing, since the worst jumping stress an agility dog can have is the tight wrap over a jump.

[eclare]

Does anyone have opinions on what type of course is easier for a certain style of dog? We're new to agility and not even close to actual competition, but Daisy is a total velcro dog who won't do anything unless she knows I'm running beside her. This means I can't send her out to obstacles, which sucks because her physical speed is incredible but we can't take advantage of it if I have to be running alongside her all the time. Knowing that, it sounds like a tighter AKC style course is likely to be easier for us than an open and flowing course, but I wonder if there are other things to consider that I am missing.

[PSmitty]

Does anyone have opinions on what type of course is easier for a certain style of dog? We're new to agility and not even close to actual competition, but Daisy is a total velcro dog who won't do anything unless she knows I'm running beside her. This means I can't send her out to obstacles, which sucks because her physical speed is incredible but we can't take advantage of it if I have to be running alongside her all the time. Knowing that, it sounds like a tighter AKC style course is likely to be easier for us than an open and flowing course, but I wonder if there are other things to consider that I am missing.

 

Since you're new to agility, there's a chance that with work and time, you will be able to improve your send with Daisy. Hopefully your instructor will have some exercises you can practice to help with this. While AKC courses might be less wide open, I wouldn't limit yourselves...you'll just have to learn to run really fast!

 

As for the original question, I admittedly don't have a lot of non-AKC experience (yes, shoot me...I run AKC agility), but I agree that USDAA courses seem to have better flow and be more open, while AKC is more twisty/turny, with lots of wraps and tight turns. I find some judge's courses pretty demotivating for the dog, with too much of that stuff. This weekend we're doing USDAA (for the second time) and I'm looking forward to seeing more what the courses are like.

[Root Beer]

Does anyone have opinions on what type of course is easier for a certain style of dog? We're new to agility and not even close to actual competition, but Daisy is a total velcro dog who won't do anything unless she knows I'm running beside her. This means I can't send her out to obstacles, which sucks because her physical speed is incredible but we can't take advantage of it if I have to be running alongside her all the time. Knowing that, it sounds like a tighter AKC style course is likely to be easier for us than an open and flowing course, but I wonder if there are other things to consider that I am missing.

 

Do you have CPE in your area? CPE Level 1 is ideal for teams who are new to Agility. And it's a great venue to get started with a velcro dog. Skip the game Jackpot. Go with Standard or Jumpers or Wildcard or Colors or Fullhouse to start.

 

If you don't have CPE in your area, I'd say the best way to know what you need to do - once your dog can do all of the equipment competently - is jump in and give it a try. You'll see the areas where you need to improve.

[eclare]

Since you're new to agility, there's a chance that with work and time, you will be able to improve your send with Daisy. Hopefully your instructor will have some exercises you can practice to help with this. While AKC courses might be less wide open, I wouldn't limit yourselves...you'll just have to learn to run really fast!

 

I actually asked my instructor about this just this weekend, and she said that while there are things we can do to improve the send, there are also many many advantages to having a sticky dog so I shouldn't try to work it out of her completely. She also pretty much said that we will never be able to do a rear cross, but we need to learn it anyway I guess it's a good thing I've been lots of speed work in my own workouts.

[herdcentral]

Where I live we only have the ANKC type trials on a regular basis. I have found the style differs with the judge, and often influenced by the type of dog the judge has themselves, with my worst results usually coming when the judge owned a small dog and the courses tended to be too tight for my old ACD. I liked the courses set by the bigger dog judges.

 

In general the courses are more suited to the BC type dog. We have the rare judge who sets the impossible on a regular basis and word soon get around.

 

One of the clubs decided to experiment and run an event with a separate course for each height. A lot of work but the courses were super. The 600 courses were big, open and flowing for the big dogs, which they loved. I was running my old ACD as a not for competition on the 300 height and it was so designed for small dogs that all I could manage was the lead out and the finish, we had to skip the middle as it was too compact and short for an older ACD to even consider doing. The small dogs absolutely revelled in it.

 

The whole day was a whole lot of work and lots of course building but I think they had a lot of clear rounds as the small and big dogs were running courses more suited to them. So there must be quite a lot of fexibility built in to our ANKC couse building criteria.

[mum24dog]

I actually asked my instructor about this just this weekend, and she said that while there are things we can do to improve the send, there are also many many advantages to having a sticky dog so I shouldn't try to work it out of her completely. She also pretty much said that we will never be able to do a rear cross, but we need to learn it anyway I guess it's a good thing I've been lots of speed work in my own workouts.

 

I can't think of many advantages myself - having a dog myself that was never encouraged to work independently from the start.

His story is that he's a JRT that we got for my daughter. She can run so never needed to encourage independence. Unfortunately, their personalities never gelled and she gave up with him. He's now 7 and I've only recently started training him regularly. I can't run and he's having to learn to unstick himself, which he is, even down to rear crosses if need be.

So don't just accept what you have now - you may be surprised what you can achieve with patience and persistence.

I must say that if someone tells me I won't be able to do something it just makes me determined to prove them wrong.

 

Pam

[mum24dog]

One of the clubs decided to experiment and run an event with a separate course for each height. A lot of work but the courses were super. The 600 courses were big, open and flowing for the big dogs, which they loved. I was running my old ACD as a not for competition on the 300 height and it was so designed for small dogs that all I could manage was the lead out and the finish, we had to skip the middle as it was too compact and short for an older ACD to even consider doing. The small dogs absolutely revelled in it.

 

The whole day was a whole lot of work and lots of course building but I think they had a lot of clear rounds as the small and big dogs were running courses more suited to them.

 

That's the way it used to be here in the UK but it just isn't possible now with the numbers of dogs and 7 seperate grades we have to get through.

I'm not sure that it was a good thing as it resulted in smaller dogs that would only run on the end of the handler's fingertip.

We have 3 sizes of dog - Small, Medium and Large - and it's much more fun nowadays for me running a non Large dog that has been trained to work in the same way as a Large dog than it used to be. It was rather a shock when first faced with Large dog type courses though.

When we first started taking part in the FCI WCs it was apparent that our smaller dogs that were used to the old ways were not competitive. Now they are used to running the same courses as the Large dogs they are much more competitive.

 

Pam

[mum24dog]

I was browsing through some course maps (here: http://www.agilitycoursemaps.com/)

 

I can't open that link unfortunately. It comes up as page not found.

Pity as it would have been interesting.

 

Pam

 

ETA Found them now thanks. I've looked at a few and they look OK to me but I guess it depends what you're used to.

[mum24dog]

It came about by how the org dictated courses will be - courses will have so much of this and so much of that, e.g. X number of traps, Y number of discriminations, Z number of changes of side/direction.

 

We don't have any prescription as to what goes in a course. I think the majority like it that way; the ones who don't are usually those who have had a run of classes that haven't suited their particular dog.

 

What judges will do though is nest courses so that course changes are quick throughout the day.

 

I can remember the days when every class involved a complete course change, or so it seemed. It's my job to allocate classes in such a way that course changes can be minimal and as few as possible. There's no other way to do it and get home before midnight. Most judges will nest their courses of their own volition but the few who might not I manipulate into making it harder for them not to.

 

The tricky part is not going over the 450 limit in each ring while still giving judges the type of classes they prefer and avoiding clashes where the same group of dogs need to be in different rings at the same time. 9 rings of over 400 runs in each and up to 40 different classes in total each day is quite challenging but very satisfying when it works out - like doing a difficult jigsaw.

 

Pam

[Root Beer]

I can't think of many advantages myself - having a dog myself that was never encouraged to work independently from the start.

 

I find it a huge advantage on courses that are tight and have a lot of turns where it would be easy for a more independent dog to get sucked into a tunnel or something. My velcro girl has almost never taken an off course obstacle that I didn't accidentally send her to!

 

I also find it a great thing in Snooker.

 

There are definitely disadvantages. I have to babysit weaves and contacts and I pretty much have to run every inch of the course myself since I can't send her more than a few feet.

 

But, I have to say that over time I have come to appreciate my velcro girl for who she is and I'd like another someday.

 

Eclare - you can teach, and do, rear crosses with a velcro dog. You have to handle them a bit different from a dog who is way out ahead, but it can be done. Unfortunately I'm not good enough to explain it, but sometimes we hit it and it's really cool. It involves waiting until the dog is committed to the obstacle, before moving behind the dog, but doing so before takeoff or entry. I rarely do them in competition - usually only with tunnels, but I rarely need to since I can usually get a front cross in where a lot of people can't.

[mum24dog]

I find it a huge advantage on courses that are tight and have a lot of turns where it would be easy for a more independent dog to get sucked into a tunnel or something. My velcro girl has almost never taken an off course obstacle that I didn't accidentally send her to!

 

My daughter started out with a dog like that - consistent but never won anything. Many lower placings (and a few good ones) but that isn't enough here as we have a system where the primary progression route is on wins rather than qualifying rounds.

(There is now an optional points system for the slower dogs up to Grade 5 but not many people choose to advance that way.)

 

I would say that it is an advantage to have a dog that will stay close when necessary, but not to have one that can only work that way, but that's from the perspective of someone who competes in a system where it usually isn't enough to go clear.

 

Just to make it clear that I'm not saying one system is superior to the other - there are a number of reasons why they are as they are in different parts of the world and I guess most of us generally prefer our home grown version. If the majority of the customers are happy that's all that matters.

 

Pam