Cheating the system

[Guest herbertholmes]

In the USBCHA, the system for qualifying for the nationals is based on the number of competitors one competes with. The higher the number, the better your chance of gaining qualification into the national finals. One of my personal pet peeves on this is a person or group of people that will purposely fill a trial with non competitive runs in order to gain numbers for qualifying. It is not against a specific rule to do this, as there no way for the USBCHA to monitor each trial as to dog quality or handler effort. However, the people that do this are cheating the handlers that try to gain points at trials where everyone puts forth the bona-fid effort to be competitive. Then it takes the honoer of competing at the nationals to a lower standard.

This happens in all levels of our sport, from the novice competing for local prizes to the nursy qualifying to the open level, in both cattle and sheep.

As I have stated before, 20 years ago I attended some trials where we set out to get nursery dogs qualified by "throwing" our runs. It was cheating then, it is cheating now. If you are doiong this now, you are a cheater. Do the honorable thing. Stop.

[Guest herbertholmes]

I hit the add button by mistake, no spell check, so please forgive my typing. Herbert Holmes

[Amelia Smith]

I agree with hub that it is cheating to fill a trial with "thrown" runs. Personally though I have most often seen this done where there weren't enough nursery dogs to qualify 1 dog or the trial was close to having enough entries to qualify whatever number and they just needed one more. To adhere to the strictest letter of the rule would mean simply that you don't offer the trial if there aren't enough legitimate entries but with the number of entered nursery dogs at this year's finals below the number available is this a problem? Other than a moral one, i mean? If there were more nursery dogs than spots available at the finals then I would consider cheating to qualify more grevious. anyway, i defer to you moi' capitan' and am curious whether there has ever been a time when there were more nursery dogs entered at the finals than spots available.

 

here's my pet peeve; a handler running a crippled dog and no one doing anything about it. and by anyone i mean the judge, course director and trial organizers. i realize that any ha member can file a complaint with the ha. there is a man here in CA who runs a bitch well past her prime that has had more than one hip surgery and that struggles to walk let alone run, let alone uphill, let alone trying to cover waspy range ewes. seems to me that a judge should have the ability to ask for some sort of a health cert if it's his opinion a crippled dog is being abused and further should be able to DQ a crippled dog if one is not available. the first time this happens will be a shock to the handler, but the second time he will either be able to produce or there won't be a second time.

[langley]

As was posted and not answered in another board, what brought on your post about cheating?

 

Your post the way it is written sounds like it is in response to a specific incident rather than in general terms.

 

Just curious.

 

Herbert Langley

[Guest herbertholmes]

I have recieved two verbal complaints about specific incidents. I got the complaints in the past week, the trials occurred in the past couples of months. There is another incident that was complained about in late summer early fall. As no official rule was broken, the complaints remain unofficial and i will not be specific about who made the complaints and against what trials.

As to Amelias post, the nursery finals does not have a limit on the number of dogs. I do not think it has had one in a long time,if ever. So no one is getting put out of the finals in the nursery, but the are in the open. As to it being ok to fill a class with an extra dog or two, not really. If it is ok to put one in why not go ahead and put 10, or 29 or 13 or maybe just don't do it would be the best, Thanks Herbert Holmes

[langley]

Thanks for the clarification.

[PennyT]

I still need clarification.

 

Since the new open qualification system started, I don't think I have run in an open sheep dog trial where handlers pulled points for other handlers in order to help on open qualification points. I think I saw handlers pull points on themselves for one dog over another when the 20% rule was still in place. I don't know why that would be exactly except that some handlers favor one or another of their own dogs in particular trials.

 

Nursery is somehow different in the minds of handlers, maybe because classes are smaller. People are always looking to get one or two qualified. I remember having to justify running dogs in nursery after they already were qualified to people who asked me why I was running my nursery dogs yet again. I stood by and still stand by the reason that my dogs needed the experience. Anyone who had a nursery dog who was not ready just had to hope that I would get in the way of my good young dogs and screw up a run if they listened to my mistakes. (Yeah, it wasn't all that bad a bet although I played to win every time.)

 

The attitude about qualifying as many as possible for nursery has often made me wonder why we don't change the qualifying system to make it more like open. This would have the added benefit of certainty in numbers for the National Finals.

 

To me, it doesn't matter in the general scheme of things if someone is fool enough to run a nursery dog who isn't ready just to fill out a class. The practice matters to the development of individual dogs, but not to the integrity of the sport as a whole, anymore than running novice dogs who won't stop reliably does.

 

Pulling points for another handler is something else again. Is this an issue in open sheep?

 

Herbert, you are saying the problem is everywhere. I want clarification on the extent of the problem in open sheep. How many unofficial complaints? How many unofficial would be complaints if they were rephrased as other than whines? In short, is this an issue in open sheep? If so, are they in one region or more?

 

I realize that specific trial names are inappropriate.

 

Penny

[J. Williams]

As I posted in similar form elsewhere...

 

The way I see it, the bottom line is this: if I am running/not running my dog(s) solely for the purpose of providing someone else with a qualifying opportunity, regardless of the means I use to do so, it's wrong... wrong of me to do it and wrong for anyone to expect/accept it.

 

Edited to add: Geez, didn't realize some folks would interpret my post as some type of confession... for the record, I was just trying to voice my opinion in a way that wouldn't be misconstrued as accusatory.

[Guest herbertholmes]

To Penny Tose,

One unofficial complaint in open sheep, both were more than whining. I am not including any thing I see as just whining. It is not problematic in open sheep as the numbers are so large, it has very little effect on a single individual. It has always been a problem in nursery sheep( I suppose some do not view it as a problem). It has been complained about in open cattle somewhat more than open sheep.

I did not say the problem was everywhere. I have had complaints about it different levels(open,nursery, and the various novice levels, which we have absolutly nothing to do with). Hope this answers your questions. Thanks, Herbert

[mike goracke]

Been waiting for this one. Two month's ago I attended a monthly trial that our association count's for year end points. One of our handler's was two or three point's behind the point leader. Long story short this person filled the class with eleven dog's.(three dog's per point)The total class ended up with 14 dog's.Out of 14, 11 went to the post marked RT and then just ran the course.A complaint was made to one of our board member's the same day.Needless to say by the time our year end final's (one month later)arrived nothing had been done.You guessed it the cheating party ended up winning the year end award. We only count your best eight trial's for point's and this person went to every trial we had this year and still had to resort to cheating to win.What's this say for our sport at the state level? Why should the person that worked at it all year be the one who loses in the end(no Iwas not the leader in point's)So don't act like every thing's ok and insult all of us who can see right through it. Maybe you should work your dog's a little more and you would not have to cheat to win a prize you don't deserve.I just hope that this behavior will not be tolerated at any level of trialing. Let's keep real guy's

[Pearse]

There's a couple of things about this I don't understand, so perhaps you could enlighten me.

 

1) How does one pack a class with 11 dogs? I've never been to a trial where a single handler is permitted to run more than three dogs.

 

2) How does a dog go to the post marked "RT" before its run, and even more so, how does a dog marked RT get to run the course?

 

Not that I want to do either you understand, but there's something about this whole topic I'm clearly not understanding.

 

For example, I can't see too many people running a Novice/ProNovice/Ranch dog in an Open class to pad the class because that dog could only then run in Open.

 

I also can't see too many people throwing a run in Open with a dog that could finish in the points/money because not only would they be throwing away $30 odd of an entry fee, but also a share in any premium, and possibly a hundred bucks or so in gas and expenses getting to an from the trial. That's a possible $200 or more loss so that someone else could pick up an extra point towards qualifying. I don't know that there are too many fellow handlers out there that I love that much.

 

So I figure I must be missing a key piece or two of information if this nefarious practice is rampant out there 'cause otherwise the numbers don't add up.

 

Pearse

[mike goracke]

Hey Pearse, The class that this person filled was a ranch class.They had four handler's enter two or three dog's each. This is a small monthly trial with ten dollar entry fee's and enter as many dog's as you want.(mostly AKC people)As far as going to the post already marked RT and running your dog, your guess is as good as mine.Our state BOD's really dropped the ball on this one.Heck two of the parties involved were just elected to the board!