a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Smallish USDAA Trial This Weekend

Friday, July 04, 2008

Smallish USDAA Trial This Weekend

SUMMARY: Some stats for your browsing entertainment.

Our trial this weekend is on the smallish side, for our USDAA trials.

Total dogs and DAM Team: Friday is DAM Team only, and there are only 115 dogs entered, which makes 29 Championship teams and 14 Performance teams (translation: Ch = higher jump heights and tighter times). We'll be running it in only two rings. This means that, on average, probably only about 15 Ch teams and 7 Perf teams will qualify for the Nationals. Boost really needs that Q!

Classes and total dogs: Saturday and Sunday we've got Steeplechase, Grand Prix, 2 Standards, 2 Pair Relays, 2 Jumpers, plus Gamblers and Snooker. An average of 280 dogs per day, and for these two days we add a third ring for the Starters and Advanced (intermediate-level) rounds.

Experience levels: Of the dogs entered, 57% are Masters level dogs, 27% are Starters level, and 16% are Advanced. It's pretty typical for the distribution to be like this, because once a dog get to Masters, she remains at that level for the rest of her agility career, so of course that class would be larger. Starters would be the next largest because any dog starting in agility has to start here, and stays here until they earn enough Qs to move up. Some percentage of dogs never pursue an "agility career." And it also seems that, once a dog/handler team has gotten it together enough to get out of Starters, they (usually) get through Advanced fairly quickly and on into Masters.

Number of runs: Saturday has over 1200 runs! That's 400 per ring, which can be a long day depending on how efficiently things work. On Sunday, fewer than 300 runs per ring and maybe we'll be out of there a little early.

Weather: It's supposed to be unseasonably cool tomorrow, but working its way back up to Hot Hot Hot over the next three or four days, so Sunday could be toasty. At least we should have a breeze.

Breeds: The five most-common breeds this weekend are 115 Border Collies, 35 Shelties, 34 Australian Shepherds, 19 All-Americans, 11 Golden Retrievers. The rest are scattered among 25 other breeds.

Ages: There's one 14-year-old dog entered, one 13, four 12-yr-olds, then the count rises as they get younger to peak at 49 5-yr-olds, 48 4-yr-olds, and 49 3-yr-olds. The older dogs amaze me. Jake was still running in CPE at 15, but not in USDAA--I believe he was 13 when I retired him from that. Remington lived only to 9.

Names: The most common dog's name is Chase, of which there are 4 entered. 22 other names are duplicated once. The most common human's name is Nancy, of which there are 6 entered. My sisters' names are Ann, Linda, Susan (or Sue), and Sharon, all of which except Ann appear in the Top Ten human names for the trial.

Jump heights: 150 dogs jump in the 22" height category (Boost's height), 80 in Tika's 26" jump height, 61 in the 16" jump height, and 28 in the 12" jump height. I keep thinking maybe my next dog will be a 12-incher, but I don't know what kind of dog! But there are a couple of cute ones in this group--from Nike Animal Rescue Foundation, through which both Remington and Jake passed at some point. But my requirement is that my next dog must be 6 years younger than Boost, and she's only 3 1/2, so we've got a ways to go!

3 comments:

  1. well aren't you just full of stats this morning :o) interesting!

    amanda @ manymuddypaws.blogspot.com

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  2. I would love to know the rest of the age statistics. My dog is 9 and I just moved her to Performance, and I'm curious how many older-but-not-yet-ancient dogs are still out there.

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  3. You can download the "trial statistics" PDF with the more complete list here.

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