The agility thread

Ditchjumper2 said:
On another note I guess you've seen the KC response to the matrix queries. Basically selective reply to some, not all questions asked, and the matter is closed. They are absolute arseholes...sorry. 🤬 What with that and no Micro until the G7s agree to give up their grade (which they won't) I am pretty much shafted. We will still try for now but progression will be nigh on impossible I think.😭
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Yes I read it yesterday. I’d be interested to see if judges are all understanding how the changes work - I have heard of the matrix times applied, AND another 10 seconds taken off, surely that is unlikely to be achievable so very soon, even if it is fair and correct? Tbh I am quite torn - when I look at my entries I have more Indy than KC planned in.

Interesting news for us in Devon, The Grange at Okehampton is our only indoor competition venue and it’s sale went through yesterday, to the Plaistor charity for Crabbet Arabians, fingers crossed this is good for agility as it’s been quite neglected for a while.
 
Fun day of stooge dogging for an instructor's seminar today, both dogs on best behaviour for some reason, up to and including a group photo. As always some good natured ribbing when I start with the big one and then walk in later with the small one, people find the contrast hilarious.

Unfortunately I teach some of the other volunteers so they've got a taste of what instruction is meant to look like, apparently I'm not allowed to say "what the f*** was that?!" any more. 😅
 
blackcob said:
KC dropping bombs again via the new ALC. Back to the old grade structure we go 🙄
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Have you seen the course walking proposal ? If I’m not in till 4th class I don’t really want to have to be there for the start , plus I’ll forget the course ! Changed the micro height too, dogs under 280 mm not 300.
 
Yes that doesn't make sense on several points, as well as yours I would add that I often opt to walk a course on the 'wrong' height if I know there's a chance I will be stuck in a queue or helping on a ring when my actual height is walking. Multiple opportunities for walking gives maximum chance to avoid clashes, especially when you're running more than one dog.

<280mm is going to be a prohibitively tiny cohort, surely?

Grade change is probably the least worst option they've come up with, but remember the huge novice bottleneck from back in the day...
 
I agree 280 is low , Zig is 276 but quite a few dogs bigger than him deserve to micro imho. The cynical part of me wonders if they’ve set it at 280 so in a year or so they can say hardly any dogs are running at micro .
 
My dogs are small but won't measure in at 280 as have withers and would struggle at 300. Clearly they don't see it as a welfare issue if leaving it until 2027. Honestly makes you feel like giving up! I too will walk at wrong height if I know am in different classes although under new proposals both mine will be in same classes! Add into that the matrix issue and I honestly don't see the point as will stand absolutely no chance.
 
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Feel more positive today 😀
Lovely day today at my club show and boy I got my steps in as was doing leads ! Girls were super. Daz for some reason was a bit sniffy for a 5 in the weaves in the jumping but we did the tricky bits well including the wafty bits 😂. Then in the agility why jump fence 3 when you can go round it 🙈 and let's stop for a snack off the floor on the way round 🙄😬. Again did the tricky stuff well for a 5 plus time for a placed 3rd.

Pebs was on fire 🔥 I got her eliminated in the jumping but she was amazing 😍 Then a clear in the agility but 1.9 time for a placed 2nd. Had she not stopped on the dw to look at the judge I reckon we'd have taken the win.

Girls were fab 😍
 
My new agility dog has arrived.

Meet Fig, 3/4 Italian Greyhound and 1/4 Whippet. Breeder does agility with the mum and her other dog, and the pups have had a fab upbringing - I’ve been astounded at how well the pup has accepted a change of home, especially as she has spent the afternoon watching us build a kitchen, with the router going, drilling, hammering etc.! Rew is disgusted but will come round.

I know I’ve made my life hard by having a sighthound for agility, but I love them!IMG_5546.jpeg
 
Both Into Shape Agility and Q-Me Agility Training have good Black Friday offers on their subscription services, ending tonight. If anyone needs troubleshooting on any one aspect, or ideas for one jump/minimal equipment skills training, I'd really recommend taking out even just a couple of months of either.

Large dog completely blew her last shot at DSD so guess who's back on one jump skills and the world's most boring, but absolutely necessary, impulse control drills. No 'sexy stuff' course running in our near future. 🫥
 
Very quiet in this thread at the moment- I prefer winter shows, well that’s not strictly true, Rew prefers them! So I have Pawsability tomorrow, Lapford (which is a non-KC league) next weekend and KST graded the following one. And a training session with Barrie somewhere in all of that. January has quite a few shows too. I am still sore from a gynae op on Monday but will take lots of drugs and rest later. Mr StR has been drafted in to do the driving.
 
Spot the Merry Risk said:
Very quiet in this thread at the moment- I prefer winter shows, well that’s not strictly true, Rew prefers them! So I have Pawsability tomorrow, Lapford (which is a non-KC league) next weekend and KST graded the following one. And a training session with Barrie somewhere in all of that. January has quite a few shows too. I am still sore from a gynae op on Monday but will take lots of drugs and rest later. Mr StR has been drafted in to do the driving.
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I do less in the winter , usually just one show a month . Today was our December outing and he was a good lad , 1st novice agility and 2nd jumping .
Good luck tomorrow, hope you’re not too sore.
 
I'm sure I'll be back to being 'encouraged' do compete once our normal trainer comes back from her holiday but I'm currently trying to work through Fen's need to nip every time he turns his listening ears off and I bring him back to correct him 🤬 He's wonderful when he's flowing and listening but the nipping is driving me nuts so we're taking it back and making him pause and calm down before we carry on.
 
I prefer winter shows as my girls do. I did do a show the other week. It was so wet with rain of biblical proportions. The car park had rivers and the girls were not amused 😐 plus I had a bad cough / cold. Maybe I wasn't in the zone but felt quite down. Pebs went rogue again in the agility. The positive being we did a great dogwalk....twice in the same course 🙈 Daz was so distracted didn't listen at all. 🙄 In the jumping Daz went well with a 5 in the weaves. I withdrew them both from last class and came home.

In training Daz has decided that doing 12 weaves is impossible and the dog walk is for pinging. Honestly feel quite down.

I will miss the next 2 shows as am going away for a week on my own(which in itself is scary 😱) Daz will have a break which will probably do her good as Schnauzers are not the easiest to train as have a short attention span.

So we will resume in the new year and see what happens then. Tbh following my move I am missing my land to practice on.
 
Final show of the year for us tomorrow. I am feeling unusually pessimistic- it is probably the time of the year, the rain and darkness, the hell of having a puppy at said time of year, and that Rew has given up weaves again despite the effort, the bribes, the physio appointments.
 
We’ve got a handler taking videos thankfully but it is frustrating that it’s still treated as fast and furious crowd entertainment rather than the big semis/finals they are.

Club member one finished overall 12th which is an amazing achievement for their first time, for want of one pole they would have made the final at Crufts! Gives the rest of us hope 😆
 
Spot the Merry Risk said:
Another year of agilitising with Rew, a vast improvement on 2023 thanks to some truly lovely people, trainers and groups.

15 KC shows and 40 classes
One first in jumping
One second in jumping
Three clear rounds
And only 23 eliminations, which is a massive improvement on 2023, where I ran 45 classes with 38 eliminations!

We have made so many lovely friends and acquaintances, and I am constantly in awe at my little lurcher who humours me and generally loves his training and competitions so long as all the weather stars are aligned, when he is bred for short chases and long sleeps. ❤️
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Well, let’s calculate this year… it won’t be very good.
19 KC shows, 58 classes
1st x 3 including just the one clear
2nd x 2
3rd x 5
CR = one. 🙄
E = 31 oh shit. 😭
AW points = 10. Again, 🙄

Despite these tragic stats we have had a fun year, trained with some good people and silently glided away from those who aren’t worth spending money on. Rew has done his typical stuff - it’s too hot, or cold, or windy, or rainy, or there’s dew on the grass. Last week queueing was like trying to control an angry chestnut mare, and he released his annoyance with zoomies in the ring. 🙄 I have of course been crap, trying to learn on the job whilst wondering just why I am pointing at the sky, or not looking at where I want him to land… painfully rubbish. Love him dearly, he is the best boy, he chills in the car, he does what he can, he worries when he knows I’m fed up (oh come on just do the damn weaves - last week he popped out eight times in the agility run, and that was a week after I’d had him checked by the physio).


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Spot the Merry Risk said:
Well, let’s calculate this year… it won’t be very good.
19 KC shows, 58 classes
1st x 3 including just the one clear
2nd x 2
3rd x 5
CR = one. 🙄
E = 31 oh shit. 😭
AW points = 10. Again, 🙄

Despite these tragic stats we have had a fun year, trained with some good people and silently glided away from those who aren’t worth spending money on. Rew has done his typical stuff - it’s too hot, or cold, or windy, or rainy, or there’s dew on the grass. Last week queueing was like trying to control an angry chestnut mare, and he released his annoyance with zoomies in the ring. 🙄 I have of course been crap, trying to learn on the job whilst wondering just why I am pointing at the sky, or not looking at where I want him to land… painfully rubbish. Love him dearly, he is the best boy, he chills in the car, he does what he can, he worries when he knows I’m fed up (oh come on just do the damn weaves - last week he popped out eight times in the agility run, and that was a week after I’d had him checked by the physio).


View attachment 170505
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He’s so cute!
Whippets are hard and I don’t even train a full whippet so massive Kudos to you! But the cuddliness and general loveliness of their personalities cannot be beaten 😍
 
KEK said:
He’s so cute!
Whippets are hard and I don’t even train a full whippet so massive Kudos to you! But the cuddliness and general loveliness of their personalities cannot be beaten 😍
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Mine isn’t full whippet either, I have an eighth each of Bedlington and Greyhound to compound my problems! 🤣
 
Me neither. The thought of how many Es we've had this year is terrifying.
We have however, had 15 wins , of which 4 have been Grade 6, so we are nearly there.
I feel like we have had a ridiculous amount of fastest 5f, usually with a pole down.
I constantly remind myself that everyone has a different journey, and every breed is different.
Last night my friend qualified for Crufts at the LIHS with her relatively inexperienced dog who hasn't quite reached 3 years old. She's also been selected for team GB. The stuff dreams are made of, but hell that girl can run and her training and thus dog's skills are phenomenal. I must not compare.
It's been a strange year for agility. Matrix changes seems to have been the talking point and I remember being at Caerphilly and being told about the immediate changes in disbelief.
I don't think there has been a bigger talking point since the intro of intermediate height, although of course that was mainly positive.
I'm still struggling with how this new matrix is supposed to improve things.
I haven't personally been affected, meaning my dog hasn't yet had time faults, despite being a 'less conventional breed' at G6 level.
However..... I teach beginners, and it's bloody hard to convince them they are good enough to compete. One of my clients has a chihuahua and she ia a junior, with a very supportive mum. Obviously micro height would be a huge benefit for this partnership, but even as it stands they are a speedy pair in training, confident and consistent.
Unfortunately at shows while they are getting clears and confidence is growing, the little dog is not yet reproducing what she shows in training thus they have had wins, with time faults.
Because of this and every story I hear of people consistently missing out by a couple of seconds, I will continue to strongly support the groups trying to get a review on the new matrix. I'm gutted for the people affected and I really hope that this situation is resolved sooner rather than later.
Maybe 2026 will be a more inclusive agility year, allowing all competitors the chance to achieve their goals, whether that be clear rounds and warrant points, or Crufts qualification.
My goal is consistency. And I don't mean consistantly getting Es or fastest 6f (Arthur I'm talking to you 🤣)
 
sarah.oxford said:
Me neither. The thought of how many Es we've had this year is terrifying.
We have however, had 15 wins , of which 4 have been Grade 6, so we are nearly there.
I feel like we have had a ridiculous amount of fastest 5f, usually with a pole down.
I constantly remind myself that everyone has a different journey, and every breed is different.
Last night my friend qualified for Crufts at the LIHS with her relatively inexperienced dog who hasn't quite reached 3 years old. She's also been selected for team GB. The stuff dreams are made of, but hell that girl can run and her training and thus dog's skills are phenomenal. I must not compare.
It's been a strange year for agility. Matrix changes seems to have been the talking point and I remember being at Caerphilly and being told about the immediate changes in disbelief.
I don't think there has been a bigger talking point since the intro of intermediate height, although of course that was mainly positive.
I'm still struggling with how this new matrix is supposed to improve things.
I haven't personally been affected, meaning my dog hasn't yet had time faults, despite being a 'less conventional breed' at G6 level.
However..... I teach beginners, and it's bloody hard to convince them they are good enough to compete. One of my clients has a chihuahua and she ia a junior, with a very supportive mum. Obviously micro height would be a huge benefit for this partnership, but even as it stands they are a speedy pair in training, confident and consistent.
Unfortunately at shows while they are getting clears and confidence is growing, the little dog is not yet reproducing what she shows in training thus they have had wins, with time faults.
Because of this and every story I hear of people consistently missing out by a couple of seconds, I will continue to strongly support the groups trying to get a review on the new matrix. I'm gutted for the people affected and I really hope that this situation is resolved sooner rather than later.
Maybe 2026 will be a more inclusive agility year, allowing all competitors the chance to achieve their goals, whether that be clear rounds and warrant points, or Crufts qualification.
My goal is consistency. And I don't mean consistantly getting Es or fastest 6f (Arthur I'm talking to you 🤣)
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We aren’t very consistent, either 🙈😬 sitting on around 50% qualification rate, and she’s just turned 7 🙈 Not sure we are gonna improve that much now although we will keep trying..
We’ve just had some bonkers rule changes too, to do with the heights. They have changed the cutoffs so now my 42cm whippet XS have to compete against 49.9cm border collies all jumping 40cm.. so annoying and ridiculously low for those BCs that already have advantage due to being BCs! 😖att.MDu-P_96oI11ILeRuzjOr4YFdGULh0kCN8G7uq7PrZs.jpeg
 
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