Agility Dog Association of Australia Ltd

Judges Debrief Open Jumping Test (PADS 12.02.05) by Wendy Blakeston

See above an open jumping test that I had the pleasure of designing and judging at the first Queensland ADAA comp for 2005 at Pads. The test was 145 metres long with a standard course time of 42 for Maxi and Midi and 45 for Mini and Toy.

There was an obvious lead out advantage from 1 to 3 to set up for the pull through after 4. Those that did not lead out had a hard time calling their dogs away from the obvious wrong course option of hurdle 6/17. After hurdle 4 there was a choice to go either to the left or right. I noted that all of the handlers that were able to do lead-outs did a nice pull through on the right to hurdle five, this then set the dog up nicely for the 250 at hurdle 6 (see diagram 1).

Those that ran with their dogs at the start and turned their dogs to the left placed most dogs in a straighter line and heading for the tunnel after hurdle 5 causing a much wider turn, also then placing the dog at risk with off course option hurdle 3 (see diagram 2).

Obstacles 7 through to 12 were straightforward without any problems and no dogs looked at off course options hurdles 19 and 20. However I was surprised to see the number of handlers that ran right to the end of the tunnel 12 before going to the weavers. Perhaps they were worried about their dogs taking the off course options and thought they were safer to be at the end to handle their dogs closely rather than rely on body language. A number of problems were encountered at the weavers, these were through two reasons. Firstly a number of handlers that ran all the way to the end of the tunnel were unable to get into the correct position for the weave entry and earned refusals. Secondly other handlers aware of the next challenge attempted to get ahead of their dogs for the tunnel long jump combination and inadvertently pulled their dogs out of the weavepoles causing a course fault.

While obstacle 14 to 15 wasn’t a major challenge it did make the handlers push out with their dogs to enable a straight run at the long jump and avoid a refusal or cross jump. Due to the handlers having to baby-sit this part of the course it made obstacles 16 to 18 a hard challenge. I saw several wrong courses at this section.

A number of handlers committed themselves to doing a front cross between 16 to 17. This worked very nicely but they had to work hard to get there, and it was great to see that even though some handlers may have been a little slower than they had planned they still stuck through with their choice of a front cross and most times were rewarded. Unfortunately most of those that decided to run the sequence on the right eliminated. Two handlers were successful doing this and both handlers did a false turn in between 16 and 17 to get the dogs attention away from obstacle 3, unfortunately though a much higher number of handlers just tried to race this section and lost their dogs over hurdle 3. As you can see from diagram 3 it was in the dogs line of vision and obvious path to take this option, and without a cue from the handler or turn this was inevitable.

A couple of handlers did do a rear cross after hurdle 17 but I found this unnecessary and as the handler was not in a position to then get in front of the dogs this caused the dog to curl to the right after hurdle 18 which then caused the handler to push the dog out to 19. Using this method the handler and dog lost all flow and wasted valuable time.

It was great to see some of the larger dogs with big long strides go from the fast 14 to 16 sequence with great strides to then adjust their pace to bounce the last four hurdles. I saw some lovely runs on the night and managed to hand out some green cards to very worthy dogs and competitors.

Maxi saw two dogs go clear 1st place went to Steve and Tommy (Kelpie) and 2nd to Kim and Jessie (Ridgeback X), Midi had three clear round cards with 1st to Denise and Lexi (Kelpie X), 2nd to Maria and Roxy (Border) and 3rd to Dallas and Jodie (Cattle X). Mini saw two clear rounds with 1st Marion and Flicka (Sheltie) and Debbie and Snoopy (Beagle) taking second place.

A most enjoyable night with the Pads committee taking great care of me.

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