Trials one must participate in to qualify for World Championships

[Serena+Eluane B.C.]

Hi, my name is Serena. I have been training my puppy for agility prep behaviour ever since she was 6 1/2 weeks old; how to do really long sit, stays, and immediate comes from a long distance range, how to tell left from right, and she knows all the simple agility equipment like the tunnel and chute (too young to do any jumping- she will be 8 months old next week). However, I do have concerns about which trials though are required to qualify for the World Championships. I live in Kansas and even pre-attended a few agility classes at an intermediate group, but no one knew a thing about which trials are required. Can anyone tell me the sequence and order of which trials must be achieved to pre-qualify. I realize I have "time" but I am a firm believer that preparedness is most essential to have a solid start. Thanks, everyone! :cool:

[Kat's Dogs]

OK - I think that this is right....

 

To get to the world championships you have to go to the USA team tryouts (put on by the AKC). You get a boost if you have won the AKC national competition (in florida). Mostly, I think you just have to go to the tryouts, and if you are good your good!

 

I don't know if that is right, I haven't looked into that much. But for things like NADAC nationals, ect. - you just have to get so many points (in the organazation) that year to qualify for entry into the nationals.

 

hmmm. I might have to go back and look at the Clean Run - it just had a bit on this subject...

[Serena+Eluane B.C.]

Hi, Kat! Great to meet you. and thanks so much for your reply. Yes, it'd be great to find the definites. Because not all the competitions use the standard/accepted equipment of the World Championships. In G.Britain, I always get to read about their details and how they do their agility training, but haven't any luck in terms of searching for that same in-depth info for the U.S. since I'm in Kansas. So you think all of the qualifications are through A.K.C? and that such is sufficient? This would make it easier for me, because having too much spread out competitions from different types would make it more difficult to be at every single one of them with a whole spread of varied equipment (i.e. rigid chute compared to the collapsed, etc.)

[Kat's Dogs]

Alrighty, this is what the Clean Run article says.

 

For the AKC Agility World Team, you have to go to the team tryouts. to qualify for those, you either were a member of last year's team, winner of the specific International Sweepstakes Classes, and/or paced 1st at the AKC nationals in your height. Or, if you are just really good and can submit 8 JWW and 8 standard run that had a score of 100 you can attend tryouts.

 

for the IFCS team - it is USDAA, they don't have information yet on how the qualification proccess will go, but info will be available soon.

 

I think that is all right, and that it all made sense!

 

Good luck to you and your dog! And Welcome!

[Serena+Eluane B.C.]

Ooo, thanks again for all the specification info! Tremendously HELPFUL!!! Thanks so much Kat! I'll try to get some Google on what and where one has to go for the nationals. You indicate Florida, but is it there every year?

 

I am also going to Google search the JWWW. But what do the initials exactly stand for? I've found so far that it means Jumpers With Weaves. And do those start locally, then progress to semi-regional, then regional, to national? or is it just based on timing and scores no matter where you trial before one partakes in the actual tryouts.

 

Heh-heh! sorry about the novice questions! Anyway, I did find the International Sweepstakes Classes which took place in Houston, so it seems to keep up with those I have to keep checking back to the AKC site... Is this correct? Thanks so much. I'll have to start copying and pasting all this useful information into a Word document so that I don't miss out on any very important qualifiers.

[Kat's Dogs]

You know the big dog show on Animal Planet they show about this time of year? Right NEXT to the dog show they are having the AKC nationals (which airs on TV in Feb.) So far, it has been in Tampa Florida every year - BUT it looks like for 2007 they will be in Columbus, OH.

 

JWW = Jumpers with Weaves. STD = Standard

Of course you have all kinds of other abbreviations for NADAC and USDAA.

 

The first thing you do is find some agility trials in your area. (AKC if you are trying to get to world team). These trials are small, usually just put on by local agility clubs (some are training center's clubs, others are breed clubs - but most are open to all purebred dogs). These are where you can start to collect points for you qualifying runs. Once you get to Elite (or advanced or whatever they call it in AKC) then you just start collecting points. This is what you have to get to qualify for the 07 nationals:

 

6 Double Q's and 300 speed points from the Excellent B class

 

OK, I don't know much about AKC, but I *think* that the double Qs mean that in one Agility trial you qualified in STD and JWW on the same day. A double Q. Speed points (once again, I *think*) are how much time you are UNDER the Standard Course Time (SCT). So if the SCT for a course was 35 seconds, and you did the course in 30, you got 5 speed points. Make sense? So once you get that at all the little trials that year, you get qualify for entry into the nationals. So it just goes from fun little local trials to the fun, bigger nationals. Then from THERE you can do all the stuff in my previous post about getting to worlds.

 

And yes, you will need to keep checking with the AKC website (which, I am sorry to say, is not a great website and hard to find what info you want).

 

So, to put in a simple example - what my plan is for my Dazzle (but we are doing NADAC right now).

 

First we go to the NADAC website and look for trials in our area. We are going to go to quite a few and see about going to nationals this/next year. So we compete in these "small" trials (they are not supper official or anything, and it is all the same people in your area and within a couple trials you will know a lot of the regular people), and collect points little by little. Once the website has the entry form for nationals online - we will start working on exactly what we need to qualify (AKC already has this info up). If we make the point requirements in time, we send in an entry form, and then we go to nationals! So it is that simple! (or did I make it more confusing?).

 

Get familiar with the AKC rules and regulations (on the website). This will help you understand all the questions that you will soon have. And don't be afraid to just go to trials! I don't think you can bring your dog though (AKC is pretty strict about things like that). but the more you go to, the more people you talk to and get to know, the greater your understanding will become. It took me awhile to get the gist of how things work - talking to people helped me the most. And all the people at trials love to have an audience! So feel free to go and watch as much as you can.

 

happy training!

[Serena+Eluane B.C.]

Hi, Kat! Thanks oh, so much for the very clear step-by-step explanations! They are again, of tremendous help. I am so grateful. This year I'll try to catch the February Animal Planet show. I do not have TV, so will have to borrow from my parents or have them pre-record (have lived without TV for 10 years because doing graphics and 3D have kept me way too busy to do anything, but work, work, work until I started wanting a puppy and found out that B.C.s have the exact same personality traits as I have and when I got Eluane the rest is history... And how Eluane loves her chute, my Dad laughed so hard when he saw her dive in full blast, over and over again, and such a little puppy back then!

Just 4 more months and she'll be a year when she can start demoing on some of the larger equipment and can actually enroll for agility classes. Yahoo! P.S. when I get more familiar with this forum, I'll have to start viewing your own agility videos. Seems like you're in tons! At BorderCollieWorld (U.K.) there's so many fun videos too, but I get wistful, 'cuz I don't get to share in their fun celebrations and get-togethers because I'm in Kansas and they're overseas. So many thanks on your advice on how to "swim" the tides on the U.S. side as well.