Jump to content
BC Boards

Recommended Posts

I don't get the 'safety' thing, the main goal of a sport is not to be something safe that could not possibly injure someone...next we should wrap our dogs in bubble wrap before taking them outside on a walk. :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 91
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

With several of the changes, particularly getting rid of the teeter, I did contact Sharon directly via email and let her know my thoughts. Each time I got a scathing email from her, saying how I hated NADAC, how I was badmouthing NADAC and didn't care about the safety of my dogs, and how I obviously was making sure other people never competed in NADAC again. All of which was certainly not true. The people out here that just run NADAC are the ones that literally call AAC "evil". Yes, that is the word they use.

 

As I say, I quit competing in NADAC about 5 years ago, as there is absolutely no challenge in the courses any more. The Elite standard course would be the exact same as the Novice course, the only difference being the yards/sec. It has changed so dramatically over the last 5 years, it doesn't even look like agility anymore. As well, no one designs courses anymore. THere is Sharon's "Bible" that is used. One of my friends that still does quite a bit of NADAC ran the same exact courses three trials in a row, and each of those trials were only a short distance away from her. Those trials were all within a 8 week span. That isn't supposed to happen, but it does all the time.

 

I didn't say, or mean to imply, that contacting Sharon directly was going to get the upset individual anywhere, or get them what they wanted. But I believe that if you are really upset about something that you go to the source, sitting in the back gripping doesn't get one anywhere, plus the fact I personally don't think it's healthy. I have written government officials, large corporations, local businesses, etc letters and e-mails when they are making both choices I dislike and ones I think are great. Sometimes I get responses back, most of the time just form automatic responses; and a few times specific responses. It is my personal belief that voicing your opinion to the person who has the power matters, even if it results in no change.

 

As far as NADAC and Sharon goes I have contacted her about choices in the past I didn't like; adding hoops, the 'course book' and I will be contacting her about the double runs (or whatever they are being called). I don't expect my little voice to have an impact; but maybe a bunch of little voices will if other people are on the same page, although knowing her history in rule changes, once her mind is made up it's done. However, I will still feel better contacting her and letting her directly know my feelings. I hope Sharon doesn't take a step that pushes me over the edge to quit running NADAC. But I am not a bandwagon person, I evaluate each rule or change, decide how it effects my dogs and myself. I sort of assume (sadly) at some point changes wil push me away from NADAC as well.

 

I like running NADAC and have trained my dogs to run more open courses and work distance. The location we go for open practice focuses on AKC/AAC/USDAA style courses; we can run those, they are just not my preference. It will be a sad day for me when some rule/guideline change happens that I won't deal with and leave NADAC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't get the 'safety' thing, the main goal of a sport is not to be something safe that could not possibly injure someone...next we should wrap our dogs in bubble wrap before taking them outside on a walk. :rolleyes:

 

There is certainly a legitimate degree to which safety should be taken into account.

 

I do believe that the claim that curved tunnels are unsafe and a mandate that all dogs 8 and over run Veterans is overkill.

 

But I hold safety to be a goal to the same degree as any other goal that I have in this, and any other, sport. Yes, there is always some risk in anything we choose to do with our dogs. Last summer 3 out of my 4 (then) performance dogs had some type of injury and not one of those injuries happened in a sport context. Obviously, choosing to participate in a sport where dogs are running, jumping, climbing, etc. is taking some measure of chance that an accident could happen, but life happens, too, and no dog is going to be safe from injury at all times.

 

At the same time, I have elected not to have my dogs perform on certain pieces of equipment at certain places due to safety concerns. A very slippery wooden A-Frame comes readily to mind. I have chosen not to have my dogs run on very wet grass, or in the snow because I personally did not consider it safe.

 

I do applaud NADAC, as well as CPE, for making safety a concern. (That is not an implication that the other venues do not, so don't take it that way - those are simply the venues in which I participate, and not because I think all other venues are unsafe. I do not think that) While I do consider some of the choices that NADAC has made in the name of safety to be a bit more extreme than I personally feel they need to be, I do value efforts to make Agility both safe and enjoyable by any and all venues that do so.

 

FWIW, the one "safety" rule that drives me the most nuts is the AKC lowered tire. At every training class where we have a tire in the course, I have to make it a point to make sure the tire is at my dog's actual height when I take my turn because CPE does not lower the tire and I want my dogs used to performing the tire at the height where they will see it in trial. Then, if I forget to lower it afterward, I mess up the next person. UGH. While everyone that I train with is most accommodating, I hate that I have to do this every single time for a "safety" rule with which I do not agree in a venue in which I do not participate.

 

But that's the way it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do pretty much share your thoughts on this. Sports should be as safe as we can make them, but any physical activity has potential for injury, as you know. :)

 

Life happens, yes you want to make it as safe as possible but I think it's silly to go as far as to say tunnels are safety hazards, it's a sport, pretty much everything is a hazard if you want to nitpick (not you, the you in general!).

 

Your dog can get hurt doing pretty much anything, and if you adopt the 'what if something happens' idea to the point that you're taking away quite standard obstacles, considering it's a physical activity and there is always a chance for injury, I don't think that's wise reasoning.

 

If they want to take away tunnels, fine, it's their call, but I don't think safety should be the reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If they want to take away tunnels, fine, it's their call, but I don't think safety should be the reason.

 

I concur.

 

If a dog is going to wipe out in a curved tunnel, I would think that a barrel, which is going to be a far tighter turn than the curve in most tunnels, is no "safer". No, the dog won't bank off the side, but on wet grass or loose flooring, a fast tight turn around the barrel could result in a dog losing his or her footing, and that strikes me as more of a risk than a dog running through a curved tunnel.

 

I'm not saying that I think the barrel is unsafe - I do not think that it is. But I don't really consider it any "safer" than a curved tunnel.

 

If Sharon likes the barrel and wants to see it in Agility courses, then that would make far more sense to me than trying to make the case that tunnels, of all things, aren't safe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Sharon just likes barrels, she comes from a barrel racing background as far as I can tell from messages on the email list. I see no problem with a barrel, I am sure most of us have trained our dogs to go round things especially in the early training. I just do not think it belongs on a regular agility course, but then I do not think hoops should be there either.

 

For me it really is just about the divergence from "normal" agility and the self righteous attitude that it is all about safety and the NADAC way is the best..... and everyone has just not got with the program. One of my pet peves is jump height, I respect peoples decision to jump low, in USDAA I jump Rievs at 26" and the NADAC folk think I am insane, many think you should only jump at skilled height which would be 16" for my lanky 23" border collie, he can step over that! If 26" was not easy for him I would drop his height to 22" I do not care about which program, I think you just choose what works well for your dog.

 

I am sure I will continue to go to some NADAC trials for basic selfish reasons... close by and I can enter a couple of days before, which with my work can be very helpful in my busy season. But I do not think I will be setting my goals towards a NATCH we will be aiming towards an ADCH ...... and NADAC will remain a place to train in a trial enviroment, keeping those start lines tight, and the contacts stopped. This honestly is a decision that makes me sad but seems the only obvious solution.

 

And yes I have recently written to Sharon, not about barrels but the rise in hoops and NADACs march away from "normal" agility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of my pet peves is jump height, I respect peoples decision to jump low, in USDAA I jump Rievs at 26" and the NADAC folk think I am insane, many think you should only jump at skilled height which would be 16" for my lanky 23" border collie, he can step over that! If 26" was not easy for him I would drop his height to 22" I do not care about which program, I think you just choose what works well for your dog.

 

It wasn't until we recently went on a 2 week road trip attending a dog show in Montana and Reno that I experienced almost everyone jumping their dogs 16 or under; it was odd to me. The trials I attend have what I would consider a normal distribution of dogs jumping all heights. I did get a couple looks about jumping Renoir at 20, but no one said anything; maybe b/c I was out of state and they were being polite I don't know. We were the only team jumping 20 at the elite level at either trials; I don't remember about the other levels, but I don't think there were any 20 jumpers there either. I had no idea that there would be such a huge difference regarding jump height choices.

 

When I was starting competition agility in '05, jump height was part of what helped me choose NADAC vs. USDAA. Boots would have had to jump 26 (or 22) in USDAA; Boots has nice jumping form, but he is heavy shouldered and I felt that jumping higher would not have been a good choice for him in the long run so it was natural to choose NADAC. Renoir who still jumps 20, does not jump as nicely at 16 and would probably do better at 22.

 

Interesting though to see different trends in different parts of the country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Renoir who still jumps 20, does not jump as nicely at 16 and would probably do better at 22.

 

Not wishing to offend anyone, but watching some video clips it doesn't look to me like some dogs are jumping well at all over lower heights. They seem rather hesitant and to have difficulty getting into their stride properly. Perhaps the adrenaline rush of flying is lacking. Of course there may be other issues going on that I'm not aware of and I know that speed isn't necessarily as essential as it is here where Qs don't come into it.

 

Seeing big dogs hopping over little jumps looks weird to me because it isn't what I'm used to seeing.

 

The little ginger dog here (for size comparison with the lanky BC) started her agility career swapping between 20 and 30 in jumps with ease. She will be 12 in August and is still competing against the best in normal classes, although regulation height jumps for her have been reduced to just under 18in.

 

Christmas07003-1.jpg

 

This is what 30in looks like - the BC x in the pic retired at 12 because her hearing and eyesight were failing, not because she couldn't make the height, which had gone down to 26in by the time she packed it in.

 

Carrie24905.jpg

 

The BC in the top pic jumps regulation Large dog height which is 26in, matching FCI height. There was a great fuss here when it was reduced from 30in (for political reasons) because many people thought it was dumbing down what should be a sport requiring athleticism. I hate to think what the same people (many of whom had been in Agility for many years and competed with numerous dogs without breaking them) would think of NADAC.

 

Jumping flat puts different strains on a dog's body than jumping rounder and higher - not less, different. Slamming into the A frame with forelegs extended is the action most likely to cause trauma. Despite what the likes of Chris Zink may say there is no conclusive evidence so far that higher or lower is better, and it's interesting to hear people say that most injuries their dogs suffer are not Agility related.

 

Repetition is the danger whatever height you choose for your dog. Compare the number of jumps your dog may do in a training session with what it is called upon to do in competition, then multiply the result by how many more times you train than compete. Competition jump height is pretty irrelevant as long as a dog is adaptable enough to understand that everything isn't always the same.

 

I keep an eye on current research (such as it is), I have discussed the subject with an orthopaedic consultant and the physio he uses, and I listen to the views of people who have been in the sport for 20+ years. I don't pay a lot of attention to people with an axe to grind. I will change my mind as to what I think is acceptable if presented with clear evidence that what I am now doing has a good chance of harming my dogs.

 

I have seen many freak accidents happen, but they tend to be just that - freaks. Our BC has been training on a rubber coated seesaw recently and banged his head and nearly flipped over when presented with a sanded one. I don't know if it was a coincidence but whatever caused it I'm not going to start a campaign to remove seesaws just because our dog might have got hurt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting away from the NADAC bashing (see note below), I don't think the barrels are necessarily a bad idea -- for training anyway. Use of barrels or cones or trees or just jump wings by themselves have been a staple of handling and handler/dog teamwork training in central Europe for many many years if not decades. I use them a lot myself both for initial training and for teaching gamble (distance/directional) skills.

 

Here's an example of two of the top trainers in Europe (Janita Leinonen and Jaakko Suoknuuti) challenging one another in a training session to negotiate a course composed of trees that have to be taken in order in a precise clockwise/counterclockwise direction using very specific handling techniques:

 

 

If this type of thing were extended to become an actual competition, it's not even absurd to think of it as something that could be extremely competitive. Barrel racing in horses for example, is taken quite seriously and is a well governed sport with some serious money behind it and some truly serious prize payouts.

 

However... I'll definitely take issue with the NADAC'ers about the barrels being safer than tunnels though. On slick or sliding footing, a high-drive dog with a tight barrel turn would be far far more likely to slip and overextend a leg resulting in temporary muscle or permanent ligament injuries than with the more gentle curvature that even a tightly curled semi-rigid pipe tunnel enforces. The injury potential is quite well-known/understood in horse barrel racing -- see the section on Common Problems in the following paper:

 

http://www.ivis.org/proceedings/aaep/1997/Strickli.pdf

 

So in summary, I'm not too sure that it makes NADAC any safer (and most probably less so) to substitute barrels for tunnels and encourage people to train dogs to go faster and faster around them.

 

--- janet

 

Note: I been doing dog agility since 1998 and have never been interested in doing NADAC; I've always appreciated USDAA holding the line on international standards and am quite comfortable with its safety record. I do have several friends who do NADAC though and I can see that they (1) enjoy the trials a lot and that (2) it really has mutated into an interesting game of its own particularly in the last few years when it has experimented with some out of the box ideas rather than simply becoming an ever more watered down version of agility. I do think it would gain much more respect as the separate sport it is if Sharon would just simply just call the sport something else since there is no remaining component of actual "agility" in it anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, that video is one of the coolest things I've watched in a while. I loved the little smoothie who came in third. :D

 

The difference between what that video showcases and what NADAC presumes to do with the addition of barrels is that the above video is an example of incredible handling skills. With the use of a barrel in NADAC, the dog will be running on a straight path, encounter a barrel to go around and continue running on a straight path. Um, boring?

 

And I do agree with you regarding the statements of safety. And someone did bring it up on the list that dogs could easily be injured by slipping around barrels on less than ideal footing. Of course, Sharon never, ever runs her dogs on anything other than dirt or grass, so it stands to reason that her dogs are able to dig in and push well around barrels.

 

The rest of us schmucks, especially those who live in the upper midwest, typically are forced to trial mainly indoors on synthetic surfaces. My dogs have face-planted and wiped out on the landing side of a jump with a NADAC-style turn (ie: not sharp). I imagine they would be pretty hesitant about going skittering around a tight barrel turn because they know they'd lose their hind end.

 

But again, there is no reasoning once Sharon has made up her mind that something is safer. When it was brought up, she simply said that you needed to take facilities into consideration and not trial where it isn't "safe." Well that's nice, I just won't trial anymore, I guess.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

And I do agree with you regarding the statements of safety. And someone did bring it up on the list that dogs could easily be injured by slipping around barrels on less than ideal footing. Of course, Sharon never, ever runs her dogs on anything other than dirt or grass, so it stands to reason that her dogs are able to dig in and push well around barrels.

 

The rest of us schmucks, especially those who live in the upper midwest, typically are forced to trial mainly indoors on synthetic surfaces. My dogs have face-planted and wiped out on the landing side of a jump with a NADAC-style turn (ie: not sharp). I imagine they would be pretty hesitant about going skittering around a tight barrel turn because they know they'd lose their hind end.

 

 

AWESOOMME video. Thanks for the link. I would need numbers also. :D

 

Of course, two of those dogs would have to run Veterans in NADAC. :angry:

 

I have a long-strided, and headstrong dog who does not like to collect. I know he would/could wipe out going around a barrel (i.e. lose his hind end), but IMHO, it is my responsibility to teach him to collect for upcoming tight turns. I have been trying to do so, and I have seen some improvement, but we still have a ways to go. This ForestAgility would be an excellent training tool. I have to find a nice forest with well-spaced trees. (I live on the side of a hill with a bit of grass around the house and a nasty pine forest (quite steep and no open spaces between the trees due to the deadfall.)

 

Jovi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...