Agility Dog Association of Australia Ltd

Judges Debrief Open Pairs (SCFD 24.04.05) by Marion Allen

Wild Strategic Tunnels

• The aim of the game is to score the maximum points within the time allowed. If you exit over the finish before the hooter you will get a bonus of 5 points. If hooter goes while you are on the course you simply cease scoring and must cross the finish hurdle to stop time.

• Each tunnel must be taken once and scores no points but doubles your points accrued that far. You must change dogs after doing a tunnel. Each dog must run twice.

• All other obstacles earn 1 point if correctly performed. Refusals do not count. Knocked bars remain down. If you make an error on the weave poles you may recommence the obstacle immediately, fixing in the middle will not score points or you may carry on and simply not get that point.

• You must do the tyre, weavepoles, long jump and spread . You may do them more than once, and it does not matter if you do not do all of the single hurdles. If the spread is taken backwards the team will be eliminated.

• To earn a Qualifying card you must reach the Benchmark of 80, within the time allowed.

At this competition, non AAD dogs were permitted to participate.  One needed a game they could participate in and have fun, but keep the Standard to Open level, so any cards earned were well earned.  Hence I decided on a strategy game, as I thought that by having to start to think about game strategy, in a game other than Gamblers or Snooker.. would pay dividends eventually in these more complex games.

The team had to take the long jump, spread, weavepoles and tyre during the course of the game. It was not compulsory to do all the single hurdles. Tunnels scored no points but doubled the points earned that far. It was interesting to watch and judge as very few tackled the same course. Some teams with one novice dog left the tricky stuff like weavepoles and tyres to the more experienced dog, a good strategy. Some simply did the obvious line of jumps that lead to a tunnel, then their partner did the next obvious line to the next tunnel etc. Some did some serious thinking about the strategy required, and realised that the less hurry they were in to do the first doubling, and the more points they scored before the first doubling, the easier it would be to get to the benchmark of 80.

If one jumps eg 5 obstacles, then double...to get 10 then another 4 and double to get 28 even doing 10 before the 3rd tunnel would make it close impossible to get the 80. Whereas if you did 10 or 12 obstacles, then doubled to get 24... then you need only do 1 obstacle, double 1 obstacle double then you are easily at 102 points, having done many less obstacles than in the previous example.

The last dog was required to then either continue taking obstacles until the hooter sounded, or to take one obstacle and exit the course, and if they did so before the hooter sounded they scored a bonus of 5.  One or two teams scored the bonus, but most were still busy on the course at end of game.

Where this game differed to normal strategic pairs was that if a dog made an error, there was no changeover of active dog... points were simply not scored for that obstacle. One team did a really great run, and I am sure must have had enough points... but neither tackled, let alone completed the weave poles.  What I really enjoyed was the pairs where an inexperienced dog was able to get the confidence of working with a more experienced dog, leaving the tuff stuff to them or even tackling some of the more tricky obstacles as the aim of the game was to play not to win. For some anyway!! What was great to see was the spectator involvement, cheering the teams on.  It was a great way to end a Double Header competition.

View the Course as an Image

Click here to Open or Save (986 x 739 pixels - 14kb GIF)

View the Course in Course Designer 3 (copy and paste the below into CD3)

Begin Course Designer
Version 3
For a free viewer, go to www.coursedesigner.com/viewer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 Course Designer

[Top]