Musing on Boost's SuperQs and Other Qing Statistics

SUMMARY: Why we don't have SuperQs

It's because we can't get through a course without a fault. As I said the other day, it's not that I'm trying to do courses that I think are very hard for us--I always default to courses that I think we're capable of doing that are still in Super-Q range. I'm not trying to *win*, ever. But the bars and the (often inexplicable to me) refusals do us in.

Tika was 5 when she finally got her 3rd SQ, and it had seemed like *forever*. The difference between Tika and Boost is that Tika pretty regularly finished one or two spots out of the SQs, whereas Boost and I almost never completely get through the course at all. Seems to me that most dogs who regularly get through Snooker courses usually get their SuperQs eventually.

Of the 113 Masters Snookers that Boost and I have attempted, 25 have been Qs--which isn't great--22%--but given that judges seem to aim for 25% of dogs Qing on any given course, I guess that's not too bad.

But getting the SuperQ by being in the top 15% of of those competing...

Among our 25 Snooker Qs, we have only EVER gotten through a complete course four times. Ever. Two of those were our two SuperQs and the other two were enough points for a SQ but missed it based on time that we wasted on course (in other words, tied with a dog on points but they had a faster time so got the superQ).

Again, it's not like we can't get through them in time or can't logically get through them--there are another 10 where we've completed our entire chosen course and finished the closing, but knocked a bar somewhere in the opening.

So getting through the course error-free is our biggest challenge. I think that dogs who can get through their planned courses regularly are much likelier to get their SQs quicker, even if they're not aggressive on points.

OK, that's enough about Snooker for the moment.

Perhaps I should move on to pondering why we've only ever Qed in Jumpers six out of 127 times (under 5%), which ultimately is what keeps us from earning our lifetime bronze award (which requires 15).

Really, maybe she should've been a herding dog. Good thing she's cute and loves to be active and engaged.

(photo by Sarah H.)

Boost's USDAA Qing percentages:

• Jumpers: 5%
• Grand Prix: 10%
• Gamblers: 12%
• Standard: 14%
• Steeplechase: 14%
• Snooker: 22%
• DAM Team Tournament: 38%
• Pairs Relay: 47%

Taj MuttHall Year In Review: 2011

SUMMARY:  Agility statistics and observations for the year.

I did this for 2009 and 2010, so I suppose it would be consistent to do it again.

Trials competed in: 18. Wow, a huge increase from last year (13). My progress in Doing Less Agility And More Everything Else seems to have reversed itself and I'm on my way back up.

• CPE: 4 trials. (Last year: 1.) This is because I decided I wanted to do more CPE with Boost as a confidence-builder for both of us, and because I decided that I want to try to finish Tika's C-ATE and Boost's C-ATCH so at least she'll have *a* championship. These will probably take us a year. (See the "The Campaign" link at the top of the page.)
• USDAA: 14 trials. (Last year: 12.) Did a couple more this year in pursuit of Tika's Lifetime Platinum and Boost's ADCH. Figure these'll take us a year, too.
• Next year--if I stick with The Campaign at an accellerated rated, it'll be up in the 20s again.

Runs: 380 (last year 304). Well, I wanted to do agility to help me stay fit. I don't know how much exercise walking and running a course *really* gives me, but at least if I'm doing that, I'm not eating.

• Tika: 211 (198 Qable^*), 138 of them Qs (70%, dang good, up from 64% last year, but is that because we did more CPE? )
• Boost: 200 (198 Qable^*), 62 Qs (31%, up a bit from 23% last year, but is that because we did more CPE?)
• CPE: 78 runs, 60 Qs (77%; last year 88% but we did only one trial)
• USDAA: 302 runs, 288 Qable, 129 Qs (45%; last year 41%, hmm, I guess the vague feeling that I'm doing vaguely better is a reality)

^*Round 2 of Steeplechase isn't Qable, for example. And that's also the main difference in the number of runs between Boost and Tika for the year.

Money:

• Entry fees: heh. Heh heh. Really I'm not sure I want to know this.
• Tika Steeplechase winnings (in 12 Round 2 appearances): $105 ($6.75, $13, $0, $9, $8.40, $8, $8, $9, 0, $9, $16, $18
• Boost Steeplechase winnings (in 2 Round 2 appearances): $18 ($0, $18)

Tika titles earned: 

date	org	title	title full	location
10/30/2011	CPE	ExST	Standard Extraordinaire (30 Level C Qs)	Santa Rosa
11/26/2011	CPE	ExFH	Full House Extraordinaire (30 Qs)	Elk Grove
11/26/2011	CPE	ExJP	Jumpers Extraordinaire (30 Qs)	Elk Grove
2/12/2011	USDAA	PJM-Bronze	Performance Jumpers Bronze (15 LEvel P3 Qs)	Turlock
4/8/2011	USDAA	PSCH-Bronze	Perf. Standard Bronze (15)	Dixon
4/23/2011	USDAA	PGCH-Silver	Perf. Gamblers Silver (25 Qs)	Prunedale
5/1/2011	USDAA	PTM-Gold	Perf. Tournament Gold (35 Qs)	Prunedale
5/1/2011	USDAA	LAA-Gold, PRCH-Silver	Lifetime Achievement Gold (350 Masters, P3, and Tournament Qs), Perf. Relay Silver (24 Qs)	Prunedale
8/27/2011	USDAA	PJM-Silver	Perf. Jumpers Silver (25)	Manzanita Park
9/4/2011	USDAA	PKCH-Silver	Perf. Snooker Silver (25)	Manzanita Park
9/24/2011	USDAA	PSCH-Silver, PDCH-Silver	Perf. Standard Silver (25 Qs), Performance Dog Champion Silver (25 Qs in each of the 5 classes and in tournament)	Turlock
11/13/2011	USDAA	PGCH-Gold	Perf. Gamblers Gold (35 Qs)	Turlock

Boost titles earned: 

date	org	title	title_full	location
6/4/2011	USDAA	RCh-Silver	Relay Silver (25 Masters Qs)	Turlock
9/25/2011	USDAA	SACH-Bronze	Standard Bronze (15 Qs)	Turlock
3/19/2011	CPE	CL4-R	Level 4 Standard	Santa Rosa
10/30/2011	CPE	CL4	Level 4 completed	Santa Rosa
10/30/2011	CPE	CL5-F	Level 5 Fun Games (Full House and Jumpers, 5 Qs each)	Santa Rosa

Class	Q percentage
	Tika		Boost
	USDAA	CPE	USDAA	CPE
Full House	-	100%	-	100%
Wildcard	-	83%	-	67%
Colors	-	100%	-	67%
Gamblers	64%	86%	14%	86%
Standard	53%	100%	17%	89%
Snooker	56%	60%	32%	20%
Jumpers	67%	67%	7%	50%
Relay	81%**	-	50%**	-
Steeplechase	92%	-	15%	-
Grand Prix	67%	-	17%	-
DAM overall (5 tournaments this year)	80%	-	60%	-
DAM individual classes (std/snk/gamb/jmp)	50%	-	10%	-

^** In relay, faults don't disqualify you if you and/or teammate are fast enough to make it up in time. Hence, much higher Q rate for fast dogs who knock bars that disqualify them in other classes, for example!

Lifetime Standings:

Tika:

• USDAA, 415 Masters, P3, and Tournament Qs. Needs 500 for her Lifetime Platinum.
• USDAA, 51 Performance Tournament Qs, which would be her Pf Tournament Platinum except that we blew the last DAM event of the year so we still need one more DAM Q.
• CPE, has 4315 points of the 5000 needed for her C-ATE.

Boost:

• USDAA, 104 Masters and Tournament Qs. Someday she'll get to 150, which would be her Bronze Lifetime, except that 15 of those have to be Jumpers Qs. 
• USDAA, needs only two Super-Qs and two Jumpers Qs for her ADCH. (Considering that she has only ever gotten 1 of the former and 3 of the latter, this is proving to be very challenging.)
• CPE, needs only 9 Qs in various things for her C-ATCH (championship). I feel confident that we can do that because (a) there are no super-Q requirements and (b) there are no refusal or runout faults and (c) she can still Q in Jumpers with one bar down.

Notes:

• Tika's USDAA Q percentages are up from last year in Standard by 5%, in Jumpers by 2%, way up in Steeplechase by 19% and Grand Prix by 37%, don't know why. Down in relay by 12%, I think because *we're* going offcourse more often, don't know why. Snooker and Gamblers % are the same, but obviously the Snookers are lower-placing because we dropped out of the Top Ten running for this year with the same percentage of Qs (and more of them because we did more trials). 
• She earned five Grand Prix vouchers for Regional Finals (you earn them by winning a local Grand Prix) after never earning ANY before in her entire agility career.
• Tika again qualified for Nationals in all three Performance tournaments (Steeplechase, Grand Prix, and Team); as you know, for the 3rd year I opted not to go.
• Tika also qualified for a bye into the Grand Prix Nationals Semifinals. 
• Boost's USDAA Q percentages are down in Gamblers by 9%, up in Standard by 9%,  up in Snooker by 12%, down in Jumpers by 3% (because we got 2 last year and only 1 this year!), down a bunch in relay by 14%, down in Steeplechase 6%, and up in Grand Prix (from 0% to 17%). All over the place. Hard to say whether we really have a trend anywhere.
• Boost again qualified for the Nationals in Steeplechase and DAM Team and again not in Grand Prix.
• Boost earned her FIRST-EVER  Snooker Super-Q.  (Now we're permanently stuck needing 2 Jumpers and 2 SuperQs for our ADCH.)
  
• Tika finished in the Top Ten in three of four Performance classes this year, missing Snooker--our Snooker game just collapsed this year for no apparent reason. Final numbers aren't in, but with only a couple of weekends of numbers missing, she's 3rd in Gamblers (last year 6th), 1st in Jumpers (last year 4th),  and 7th in Standard (last year 5th), and *maybe* 11th in Snooker (4th last year).
• I competed in my 250th trial in November. That's a lotta getting up early!

Biggest issues at the end of the year:

Tika:

• Table: When younger, had a pretty fast table. Has been getting slower and slower to lie down; at this last trial, we barely made course time after a slow down and then the next day she never did lie down at all.
• Dogwalk down contact: Sometimes she runs through it beautifully (she's supposed to run quickly to the end and stop, like she does in class). But more often she's slowing wayyyyyy down and then either creeping into the yellow zone or flying off right before the yellow zone.
• Oddball things happening on course--the staring. The walking through tunnels. The heading for an obstacle and turning back to me. Keeping me wondering about hearing and vision.
• She might be starting to drop bars more again, which haven't been much of a problem since we moved to Performance. Need to go through and do some detailed counting on that.
• No problems with weaves (although sometimes even slower than normal), start line stay, Aframe (having conceded that she does a running Aframe).

Boost:

• Big surprise (not): Knocking bars. I don't think it's getting worse or better.
• Big surprise (not): Refusals and runouts. I don't think its' getting worse or better.
• Weaves: They seem to have fixed themselves again earlier this year and are staying fixed, almost no pop-outs or missed entries.
• Disappointing: Coming off the side of the teeter. Working in that direction on the dogwalk. I've been emphasizing nose touches at the end of the board at home and in classes and  I think we're improving this. They were such good contacts for so long, hoping that this is fairly easily repaired.
• No problems with start-line stay, Aframe usually good but sometimes releasing herself early.

USDAA Weekend Is Coming

SUMMARY: What's going on.

No, I still haven't posted photos from the October or November CPE trials or the hikes I've been on or pretty much nuthin'.

Friday I'll be heading out of town for another 3-day USDAA weekend in Santa Rosa. Thank goodness first dog on the line isn't until 9 a.m.; I can sleep in a little later than usual (although it's a Friday, so I'll have to deal with morning commute traffic--uhhhhhh--maybe I can't sleep in a little later).

It's three days because they put Team on Friday. I really didn't want to use another vacation day that I don't have, but Tika just needs one Team Q for her Performance Tournament Platinum--that's 50 tournament Qs since we moved to Performance in mid-2009. Such a far cry from our youthful days in Championship (2003-2009)!

Our Qing percentages in the team events:

	Ch	Perf	Notes
Steeplechase	29%	77%	We almost always Q if we run clean. In Championship, our non-Qs were almost always knocked bars or ticked broad jumps. In Performance, hmm, she mostly stopped knocking bars and ticking broad jumps.
Grand Prix	62%	55%	Her Q rate in Championship is higher because, until the end of 2008, you could Q with 5 faults. In Perf, hmm, most errors are obvious handling errors with random popped contacts (mostly danged dogwalk). Why I can handle steeplechase, which is much faster, but have problems in GP, dunno.
Team	59%	100%	Have Qed 9 out of 9 attempts in Performance. I attribute that primarily to the fact that Tika and her teammates are more experienced than they were in early championship, noting that the percentage is a little skewed for Championship--she Qed only once in her first 7 attempts and then 9 of her next 10.

AAAAAAaaaaanyway, that's 5 runs on Friday for team (Standard, Gamblers, Jumpers, Snooker, Relay), then Saturday and Sunday give us Steeplechase, Grand Prix, two Standards, two Jumpers, two Pairs Relay, and one each Gamblers and Snooker.

What I'd like for Tika (see also the "The Campaign" link above):

• Team Q to complete her Tournament Platinum
• Qs Qs Qs  towards her LAA platinum
• For Top Ten, would just be nice to get a couple more Standard points and a win in Snooker. I still think that won't put us in the Top Ten in Snooker, but it's our only hope, Obiwan.

For Boost:

• The usual Qs we're hurtin' for: Jumpers. Snooker Super-Qs, Grand Prix.
• Nice smooth runs without refusals, runouts, or knocked bars.

And as long as we're looking at Q percentages, here are some for Boost:

• Gamblers: 27%
• Jumpers: 9%
• Pairs Relay: 37%
• Snooker: 21% (but SuperQs--only 1 so far ever, so 1.3% SQs)
• Standard: 16%
• Steeplechase: 17%
• Grand Prix: 8%
• Team: 37% (Only 1 out of 3 times, but not as bad as I had assumed)

The best news is that all the Merle Girls seem healthy and happy and ready to go. The second best news is that the weather is supposed to be mostly sunny and cool; good agility weather.
OK, now off to do errands, earn a living, and all that until early Friday morning.