agility learning never stops

SUMMARY: compare 1995 to 2025

Source:  My comment on a friend's Facebook post about how agility training never ends, January 2, 2025. 

TO DO: Add photos?

Susan P said: Lots to do- always lots to do. Agility- the sport for people who never reach a finished product! lol

Never finished, right! I remember a point in my agility career, probably around the end of my first year, when I'd been competing for perhaps six months after six months of class training, and I thought, we already know how to do all the obstacles and we know the rules and we can run a course, what more do we need to learn? 

Of course Nancy and Jim (Of Power Paws agility) kept figuring out more things for us to learn. Dang it! And I continued with all that sort of thing for almost 2 decades. And by the end of that time, agility was changing faster then I could keep up with. It is very different sport.

Equipment

Some changes are to the equipment. Back then, I thought we needed an even larger variety of equipment that was already available. But since then, most if not all American utility organizations (Based on what I know about AKC, UKI, USDAA, CPE, and NADAC – – the last one has gone even farther away with obstacles) have eliminated The following (in part, for safety, and part for their difficulty as an obstacle to set up and move around):

• the crossover, 
• the chute (collapsed tunnel)
• The table except in certain circumstances
•  I think the tire is on the way out? 
• and I'm not sure about triple jumps… I think they are gone?

other changes: 

• The A-frame is now rubberized (And so are the dog walk and the teeter) instead of plain plywood or metal, And is not as high
•  I don't think anyone allows an odd number of weave poles anymore But I remember encountering 11 at least once in a competition. And the spacing between weave poles is much more generous by several inches

Handling And training

i'm not sure that I can do a summary or even a list of everything that has changed here.Back when I started, it was not completely uncommon to see people trying to always run the course with their dog on their left side, as in heel position. In my training, it was all about doing the right body language and the right obstacle name to get the dogs to go around a course. Now, everyone is learning Commands to verbally direct their dog to the backside of a  Obstacle or to skip an obstacle or to prepare to turn instantly after An obstacle. Handler's work at a much greater distance from their dogs, and that is particularly important because dogs have gotten so much faster.

Back then, pretty much everyone trained their dogs to at least stop briefly in the yellow zone at the bottom of the contacts. A few years into my experience, people were starting to work on figuring out how to train dogs to do running contacts, that is keep their complete speed but ensure that they got their feet in the yellow. More theories were evolving over that time. More people were successful with the training.Now, watching some of the national international championship runs, I think almost everyone is trying for running contacts and usually making them.

Dogs

back then, everyone began with whatever pet dog they had. Now, border collies Dominate the top two or three heights. When I first saw a fast Papillon on do a course, around 2000, I and everyone else were stunned to see the speed and that the dog's speed on the course beat even the top border collies. Papillion's became more common, now Some people are Breeding Border Paps To get the size and speed advantage of the smaller dogs and the working ethic of the border collies. As I understand it, that is still an experimental thing and the results are uneven, as to be expected when trying something new with crossing breeds.

And one no longer commonly gets a dog from Just someone that they know or at a shelter if they really want to compete at the top levels--people know so much more about which breeders are breeding for show versus breeders who are breeding for dog sports or herding...herding border collies are still a popular source. 

people have always worked on finding ways to get their dogs to do courses faster, to react to you faster, to move their legs faster, to make turns faster,but now there are so many activities and exercises to ensure their physical health and their attitude. That felt like they were just beginning when I started, if they were there at all.

In summary

everyone competing learns and relearns and relearns and relearns how to work with their dog on and off course as the standards for skill and time and performance and equipment change – – 

I would still love it if I were younger (because my joints did not age well). Sometimes I loved learning new things. Mostly I did. But towards the end, particularly as my knees and back got bad, I would look at the new "master handling" courses in USDAA and think, no way. Just no way.

But if I were younger and starting out…

I'm a little behind in my blogging

SUMMARY: Maybe I'll just spam my own account

Whenever I have a topic that I want to bring up, or edit, or expand upon, or capture from Facebook (or other places) to a more permanent place, or add photos to first, I create a draft post here. 

It's getting out of hand. 94 drafts. If I were to publish one a week, that would give me a year and a half of posts. BUT many are within the last year, where I felt that I haven't had time to turn them into actual posts becauseI'mtoobusyreadingclickbaitonfacebook because I'm still unpacking the house and trying to organize things and now also get ready for xmas.

It occurs to me that, perhaps, I should not wait for the editing or the photos or the additional info, but just spend 10 minutes each and post whatever it ends up being. (Backdated to their original date, of course...?)

One challenge is that many of my original ideas for posts have become obsolete, or the focus will necessarily have to change. Of my two earliest drafts--

Nunes Agility Field, used both by NAF and by VAST (Valley Agility Sport Team I think)--consisting of the same people-- has changed drastically. "John" died several years back. Then the group decided to decommission the NAF organization. Then the leased/loaned land was reclaimed. Pretty soon nothing was left, and this year VAST dissolved as well. A very different story.

The Future of Dog Agility has changed so much (is USDAA really on the way out? How about CPE? Will UKI take over?) that the questions (those questions) weren't even on the horizon back then. Furthermore, whatever I had intended to say 18 years ago (OMG!) I didn't even outline in the draft. Wish I had. I'll bet it would have been interesting to read now.

Meh. Requires making decisions. Plus my speed  at creating drafts has increased lately, it seems:

• December: 4
• November: 5
• October: 1
• September: 4
• April/May/June/July/August: 0

Instead, I've created this actual post about Drafts. Is this some kind of meta thing? 

Instead, back to fretting about boxes of books and holiday decor nowthatI'vespent45minutesonthissuddenunplannedentry.

Tribulations of Planning Agility Trials

SUMMARY: How to organize walk-throughs and runs for multiple dog heights?

Backfill: My responses to FB question on May 28 '21. Something that every trial chair has to wrestle with.

My first three agility dogs. All different heights, of course.

From Facebook (Cynthia H):

At AKC agility trials in the Utah/Idaho area, at the Master/Excellent level, we would usually split the walkthroughs for the small/tall dogs by using the walk/run, walk/run method.  This seemed to be highly popular in our area.  Lately, it seems clubs have changed to walk/walk, run/run.  With not much of a break in between, just to switch out workers.  I guess the theory is that it saves time, but it only saves about 5 mines per class, so maybe 10 minutes a day, which doesn't seem to me like it's worth it.  I'm wondering, in your area, what do the clubs do?  And what do you prefer?

Many comments about pros/cons of each. I'm picking this one:

Hmm good question. We typically do walk, walk, run for 24-20 then 16. Walk 12, walk 8-4 run all. So it's split tall and small.. I hate it personally because I have a 16 and a 20/24. So sometimes I have to cut my 16's walk short to get my 20/24 ready to run cuz he's often first dog on the line. 

Taj MuttHall says:

I had two 24-20 dogs for years (er... 30/24... er, 26/22...LOL!^note) with different needs and capabilities. So if it were walk/walk I'd sometimes sneak back out with the small dogs to figure out my 20" dog's plan--then cut that short and rush to get my 24" first on the line. But if they did walk/run walk/run (or only one walk for everyone), I'd have to cram two dogs' plans into one walkthrough. Or when running three dogs... [trembles with terror]. 

After several years of USDAA Nationals, where everyone walked all the courses early in the morning and you really literally might not run for hours and have to remember several courses, I learned that I can handle any variant.  

For handlers who are novices, though, arrangements that are easier on the handler are better.

I've been in on the planning and there's never a perfect answer for every issue, curse the agility gods! [Oops, sorry agility gods, I was joking...]

---

^{note 
About jump heights, if you care --
darn it, I might pull this into its own blog post. Later. There's never a perfect answer for every blog issue, curse the blogging gods! [Oops...]}

When I started, Remington jumped 30" and Jake jumped 24" in USDAA.

Shortly thereafter, that became 26" and 22", which lasted for years, so Tika jumped 26" and Boost jumped 22".

 

More recently, they dropped to 24" and 22"... or something... I've not kept up with it all. (In all cases, dogs in Performance jump one height lower so, for example, when I switched my dogs to Performance, Tika jumped 20" and Boost 16".) 

 

(I've not even begun to mention all the jump heights for all sizes of dogs. Here's page 1 (of two!) for USDAA this year.)

Tuesday T-Shirt Tales: Mixed Breed Dog Club

T-shirt tales? Because every t-shirt tells a story, don't it.
And I have so very many of them. Shirts. And stories. ---- Whaaaaat??

All T-Shirt Tales

SUMMARY: Back before agility and AKC both fixed and ruined it all.

Bought in 1998. Still wear it.

Even before I adopted Amber, my first dog, I knew that I wanted someday to train an Obedience Champion. But, in my naivité as a first-time dog owner back in the '70s,  I didn't know until a member of the local AKC dog training club told me: "If you wanted to compete, you should've gotten a purebred."  I felt insulted and angry. And that was that. I  washed my hands of AKC. 

That same year (1978), Mixed Breed Dog Clubs of America was founded to allow AKC-rejected dogs of any kind to compete in Obedience and Conformation.
MBDCA was an instant hit: All that pent-up desire from owners of non-AKC breeds and mixed breeds and otherwise unpedigreed pups. Affiliates grew up across the country. 

I had no way of knowing about it and, in any case, the California affiliate (MBDC-CA) wouldn't exist for another 15 years--which happened to be the year Remington was born. How convenient!

Unaware, Remington and I started basic pet obedience classes, and then my instructor told me about MBDC-CA. So! Yay! We began training in earnest with a private instructor.  A possible Obedience Champion dream come true at last! We were [almost] good enough to start earning legs [qualifying scores towards specific titles].  

Most of ours scores were not nearly this good--I got a bit of a vibe of "how sweet that people are bringing out their mixed breeds" from this judge--but I wasn't going to turn down a close-to-perfect score! [We also started competing in agility in 1996]

Demonstrating tricks at the MBDC-CA picnic: 
Jake Shake
Tika "Bang!"

A bonus: The club hosted several events through the year, but in particular their annual picnic with a smorgasbord of fun and games, and of course too much wonderful food. Someone in the club demonstrated advanced tricks, which inspired me to push further into that fun activity with Rem.   Later, for a couple of years, Rem and I demonstrated our tricks repertoire to inspire others. 

The MBDC-CA cemented some of my nascent friendships, expanded my understanding of dog sports and organizations, and gave us a chance to just have fun with our dogs and friends in relaxed, dog-friendly camaraderie.  

Meanwhile, something else that I initially had no idea about had begun only 10 years before MBDC-CA's founding. It would, directly or indirectly, lead to the collapse of most of the MBDCs a mere 10 years after I started training Remington. Yes: dog agility (mid-1980s).  

Obedience was interesting but pretty low-key, and Remington wanted more more more! And so did I.  We tried tracking, too. And "Circus Dog" classes. And then my original obedience instructor told me about another thing -- dog agility. Went to a class, loved the look of it, was accepted for training, and ...  I had no idea what I was in for. Among other things--a rapidly growing collection of new friends with purebreds and mixes all with a common love of dogs and, now, agility.  Even though clearly Obedience would be my main thing.

A year after I started agility with Rem, Jake came home with me, so then I had two mixes with whom to have fun at the annual MBDC-CA picnic. One year, Jake won the hot-dog diving contest (bits of hot dog in a bowl of water) almost before the timer could start the stopwatch. The club's monthly newsletter reported everyone's titles and achievements and new puppies and the passing of old dear friends and activities. An eager, active, close-knit, and successful organization, with dogs earning obedience and conformation titles left and right.

Of course I have no photos of me in the MBDC-CA t-shirt at one of their events, but at agility competitions, we'd gather for photos anyway.
Here, four of us wore our MBDC-CA t-shirts. (Me with Tika and Jake.)
Arlene (to the left of the sign) and I became good friends outside the world of dogs.

But something was happening--I began to lose interest in competitive obedience, because: Agility. And other people began to lose interest in competitive obedience, because: Agility. People wanted demos of agility and articles about agility. evvvvvery body, it seemed, was doing agility. 

And then, the finishing touch: AKC, under pressure from a huge agility community and other growing dog sports (or possibly to tap into all that money that wasn't going their way), made it possible for mixed breeds to earn AKC obedience and agility titles. The purpose for MBDC had nearly vanished; only conformation remained as a unique draw. Fewer and fewer people came out for MBDC events. Fewer and fewer people had interest in doing the work to keep the club running.  In 2013, it folded completely, as did all but one affiliate across the country. Long after I had ceased interest in obedience.

I appreciate that it existed at all, at the time that I needed it.

-----

References for fun:

• MBDCA on Wikipedia
  

So long, and thanks for all the fish

40 years of agility: Two Crufts Videos

SUMMARY: The sport has changed so much.

Video of agility demo at Crufts, 1978.  Take note of the equipment, the speed and athleticism of the dogs (and handlers), how close the handlers are to their dogs, the complexity of the course, the difference in speed between the different dogs.

Video of agility final round at Crufts, 2017.  (the beginning includes a clear graphic video of the dog's path through the course.  After that, I like the run starting at 21:15 as an example)
Compare and contrast: the equipment, the speed and athleticism of the dogs (and handlers), how close the handlers are to their dogs, the complexity of the course, the difference in speed between the different dogs.

And some context for you:

• 1978: Dog agility originated as a fun demo sport at Crufts (or possibly much earlier; see the Wikipedia article).
• 1980: First official agility sport rules definition, by The Kennel Club; first official competition at Crufts that year.
• 1983: First agility-specific organization founded (Agility Club in the UK).
• 1984: First agility-specific organization started in the U.S.
• 1987: First time small dogs could compete at the national level, at Olympia (until then, it was all large/tall dogs).
• 1987: First agility competition in the U.S.
• "In 1988, almost no one had heard of dog agility in the United States, while meanwhile in England it had become an extremely popular sport, drawing hundreds of spectators."
• 1989: with TV exposure, agility started its boom in the U.S.
• 1991: Power Paws Agility (where I've taken most of my training) was founded in San Jose, I believe the only training facility anywhere near the SF Bay Area at that time, so people came to weekly classes from as far as 2 hours away.
• 1992: My agility club, The Bay Team, was founded. I believe at the time there was an dog breed club who held events in Fresno, but that's about it.  BT held their first competition in 1993.
• 1995: I started agility training.
• 1996: January, my first competition, with Remington.
• 2014: late in the year, my last competition, with Boost. (Maybe will be able to do again someday. Who knows.)
• 2018: I still follow agility and occasionally do some backyard training and take classes.

New Member

SUMMARY: A brief bio.

I've been a member of The Bay Team since not long after I started agility lessons, without ever really intending to become an active member (ha! we know how that turned out!). I joined SMART when that club formed, although I consider myself more a supporting member. I attend several other clubs' events regularly but never joined; finally decided that I really ought to join more of them both as a sign of general support and to keep up on the news.

So I joined more clubs (aren't we lucky to have so many with members located nearby?). And one asked for a photo and a new member bio. Well, I hardly think I'm new to most of their members, but OK, I'll indulge:

My obedience instructor suggested agility to me as I was running out of other things to try with my smart and energetic rescue Squirrelhünd, Remington (competitive obedience, tracking, tricks). I fell in love with the sport from the instant that I saw the brilliantly colored obstacles on the emerald green lawn with dogs doing unbelievable feats before my very eyes. I signed up for classes at Power Paws Agility (except back then, in 1995, they hadn't come up with that name yet). My instructors finally convinced me to try a competition, and I did, at a mudful NADAC trial in January 1996 in San Martin. And we got some Qs and some ribbons! And you know what happened next: More agility, and more and more and more! I had to keep my day job as a technical writer to pay for the agility entry fees, the agility training, the agility shoes, the agility videos, the agility gear bags, the agility team shirts, the agility canopy, the agility obstacles for the yard, the agility minivan MUTT MVR, and, of course, the agility house Taj Mutthall in San Jose.

I've competed with four very different dogs and we've earned Qs in NADAC, ASCA, CPE, and USDAA. My second dog, Jake the Semidachshund, earned Championships in all four, but now there are so many trials available that I've concentrated on USDAA with some CPE; my third dog, Tika the rescue Craussie, has Championships in both of those. My fourth dog, Boost the nonrescue Border Collie (littermate to locals Bette, Beck, and Derby and Top Ten dog Gina (sibling envy? what sibling envy?))--well, let's say that she loves to do agility, or any other active and interesting job. She particularly excels at bringing in the newspaper every morning so I don't have to step outside no matter the weather.

I've watched the sport and my own skills change. I'm delighted (in retrospect) how I went from huddling in a dark corner many years ago, cursing the dog gods and myself because we couldn't get even the easiest gambles, to thrilling about Tika's position as the #2 Gambling dog in USDAA Performance 22" for the year 2011. Having great instructors and, yes, sigh, practicing really helped with that.

Tika turns 11, Boost turns 7, and I turn [mumblety-mum] at the end of January; and I'm still shaping up my thoughts on what's next for all of us. I know that photography fits in there somewhere, and hiking, and yeah, sure, someday I'll get back to that budding fiction-writing career that I abandoned 16 years ago for the slings and arrows of dogwalk contacts.

I blog about all this at TajMutthall.org.