AKC Rule Changes (January 1st 2012)

AKC tends to have up to 3 rules changes over the course of each year (usually on January 1st, July 1st, and/or September 1st).

I went over the July changes right before I disappeared, and in September, we didn't really have any changes other than some for the clubs and how they go about registering for trials. Among them, the recording fee has gone up by 50 cents for each entry, and our local clubs are making us pay that. Doesn't seem like much, but a dollar here and a dollar there add up over time.

In January 2012, we have quite a few obstacle changes coming up though, so here they are:
- Most notably, the chute length is changing. I believe its length has been 10-12 feet up until now. Well, starting January 1st, the length is changing to a mere 6 feet (well, between 6' and 6'6" technically)! That's a crazy short chute, you have no idea. A short one like that is allowed to be used during bad weather right now, and I saw it in action at the last two trials we went to (because it was rainy and muddy, but that's another story), and boy is it short. It's practically a joke - dogs come flying out of the thing. It will be interesting to see this become the standard, but I don't suppose it'll be any advantage to me. Currently, I actually like that the chute is pretty long, and Philip gets stuck in the momentarily - it gives me a chance to catch up and collect myself, I don't get many of those on course with my lightning dog. Now they are taking even that one spot away - sigh...
- The tunnel is seeing a small change in that a 4" spacing between the ribs is now required (used to be up to 6"). No real effect to competitors from that one.
- Weave poles now officially require 24" spacing between the poles (used to be between 22" and 24"). They've been pretty standard already though, so no effect from this change either.
- Double and triple jumps are now emphasized that no solid sides will be allowed, i.e. all bars must be visible from all sides. Nothing new really, all doubles and triples I've seen so far have been non-solid.
- The wings for all jumps are now described as being 16"-36" wide (24" recommended), and 26"-42" high. Not sure what that's changed from, but it's highlighted, so I'm including it :)

That's all for January changes. More changes will be coming in July (new titles mostly), but that's still a bit away, plus it could still change, so I'll save those for later.

AKC Rule Changes in July

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but Agility is still a young and growing sport. Many different organizations hold trials and offer various Agility titles, and each comes with its own set of rules. These rules morph over the years, usually improving on the safety or the challenge level of the sport.

Starting July 1st, some new rules are going to be taking effect in AKC Agility. Since Philip and I have a couple weeks before our next trial, I thought it would be a good time to review these :)

The biggest news is, of course, the new Time 2 Beat Class. I've mentioned it now and again before, and I plan on making a detailed post about all the rules closer to date, but I'm very exciting for this new class. It's meant to run more like the tournaments in USDAA, and should be a fun new thing to strive for. This class comes with its own new titles when certain points are accumulated, but I'll explain all that when I make a separate post, I promise.

Second up is the removal of MACH point place multiplier. As you might remember from my quick tangent on MACH points before, the current system has a multiplier in place, such that any dog taking 1st place gets their points doubled, and 2nd place dogs get 1.5 times the number of points. Well, starting July 1st this will no longer be in effect, so the number of points earned will be equal to the number of seconds ahead of SCT, no matter what place the dog came in.
This is both good and bad. On the one hand, it's better for those people trying to get into the top 5 of their breed and go to the invitational events, since there won't be a bias for dogs that run in smaller classes and default to 1st or 2nd places due to sheer lack of competition. On the other hand though, those of us just shooting to put a MACH title onto our dogs won't have the luxury of getting a point boost when our dogs do run fast and beat others anymore.

Last, but not least, AKC has introduced a PACH title. This title is very similar to MACH, but it is for dogs running in the Preferred classes. Previously, preferred dogs could only get PAX (20 QQs, no points) as their highest title, but now they have new heights to strive for. To earn a PACH title, the dogs have to earn 750 points and 20 QQs (just like for MACH, but doing so in the preferred height). The very cool thing about this new title is that it is retroactive, meaning that any dogs who have completed the required number of points and double-Qs prior to this date will still get the title added to their name!

There aren't going to be any obstacle changes that I'm aware of, so I think this about covers it. Be on the lookout for a comprehensive T2B post sometime soon!

More Rule Changes

I made a quick post about the pause table changes last week, but that isn't the only thing that has changed in AKC Agility rules this month.

The A-Frame used to be 5'6" for all dogs, but has now been lowered a bit for the little dogs. So starting September 1st, all dogs jumping 4" or 8" get to have their A-Frame lowered to 5'0" - it might not seem like much, but when the dog is under 11" tall, even 6" makes a huge difference.

The tire has also undergone a height change, now being set 4" lower than before for all dogs. So now the 24" dogs will jump a 20" tire, 20" dogs - 16" tire, and so on. The two extreme heights get exceptions - 26" dogs will jump a 20" tire, and the 4" preferred class dogs get the tire placed on the ground (true height depending on the tire wall size, which is regulated to be between 3 and 8 inches thick).

The Dog Walk has also changed to exclude the up-contact, only requiring the dog to touch the contact zone (lower 42" from the end of the board) on the descent.

Pause Table Changes

Since Agility is a relatively new sport, the rules under the different organizations are constantly changing. This year AKC has introduced several changed starting on September 1st, and one of the biggest ones affects the Pause Table performance.

As you might remember from my original Pause Table post, AKC's rules were requiring the dog to either sit or lay down on the table for 5 seconds in order to perform the obstacle correctly.

This has been an issue for many dogs and handlers, so the complaining finally got through. Starting September 1st, the dogs are no longer required to perform any particular action on the table, but rather just stay on it for 5 seconds. The dogs may stand, sit, lay down, or balance on their hind legs - so long as they stay on top on the table, the count continues.

This new rule gets rid of any time loss when dogs would break their position, but getting off the table before the 5 seconds is up will still count as a fault, and require the dog to get back on it and the count to be restarted before continuing on. I think it's a good change overall. The one bad thing I can see coming from the new rule is that the impatient dogs will be tempted to break the count early if they are allow to stand "on guard".

Judging on what I heard from the people attending trials last weekend, everyone is very happy with the change so far - things are moving along faster, and many dogs are really benefiting from this. You have no idea how often I've seen a dog get up on the table and sit when it's supposed to lay down or vice versa, with the poor handler practically doing cartwheels around it, but no more of that!

I'll be attending a trial this weekend, so it'll be interesting to see this new rule in place first-hand. It probably won't have much of an effect for Philip though, since he's always been very good with sitting or laying down on the table. Since we also compete in USDAA, which always asks for a down, I'll continue making him lay down in AKC as well.

April AKC Trial - Sunday

Part 2 - read about Saturday's runs here.

We had just two runs on Sunday since FAST wasn't being offered, so the day went by much faster, but it certainly had it's own surprises.

We started off with Open Standard again, and this was a strange run - with a total of four tunnels! Somehow, I just had this feeling that Philip would mess up at least one of those... So off we went on the course - no problems to start with. When we got to the table, Philip ran up way too fast and flew right off of it, earning us a table fault. I got him back on it, and we continued the run back on track. Now, one of the multiple tunnels was the very last obstacle on the course, and with the way the approach worked out, I was on the outside of the curve (it's safer to be on the inside). The curve was more like an L than a C, so the wrong end wasn't too inviting and I hoped for the best, but of course Philip disagreed. He actually went out of his way to take the wrong end, ugh! This meant several things - for one he got a refusal for going past the plane of the entry, he also got a wrong course for going the wrong way, and lastly he tripped the finish line timer before finishing the course by running into the exit. I turned him around, got him to take it the right way, and basically expected an NQ for all the mistakes.

However, on my way out, someone congratulated me saying it was probably a Q. I asked why, and they said that one of each type of error was okay to have in Open, so we were probably fine, hmm... I went to my instructor, asking was she thought, and she said she wasn't sure, but yes - it was probably good, so I should go see the results. Our next run was coming up though, so I figured this could wait and went to get ready for Jumpers.

The Jumpers course was medium difficulty, but I felt confident - we were at a lower jump height and Philip did great the day before. We got to the start line and took off. Immediately, I messed up on of the front cross I had planned, and then another, but Philip was a trooper and went the right way both times. Then I heard it - the dreadful sound of his claws hitting the jump bar. Did it fall? I didn't have time to look back, so we kept on going. We crossed the last jump and I looked back on the course - the jump setter was running towards a jump, to fix a fallen bar... Oh, Philip, what am I going to do with him? As our instructor put it, I'll keep him :) Still, here we are with a yet another NQ in JWW for knocking a bar, this time at only 8" off the ground!

After the run, I finally went to see the results for the Standard course - we had an NQ, and one of each faults, oh well. I updated our instructor (Anne) on the results and went to pack up for the day. As I was coming back to pick up the crate, I see Anne coming towards me. "I saved your leg" she says. Huh? So it turns out that after I had told her about our results, another lady that overheard us thought about the whole one-of-each-error thing. The rules did indeed say that one of each error for a total of 3 was okay in Open, so why the NQ? Anne decided to go see our scribe sheet, and apparently there was an F (failure to perform, immediate NQ) on there as well, which is why we had an NQ. So she went to talk to the judge - where did the F come from? Answer - back in the days of non-electronic timers, the rules were that tripping the finish line early would earn you an F, but Anne didn't think that rule held for electronic timers. The judge told her to find it in the rule book as she wasn't aware, so Anne dug out the rule book and guess what - no F when electronic timers are used! So the judge was mistaken and would change our result to a Q! I waited while the poor secretary made a yet another change for my prince of a dog, reprinted the results yet again, and we happily walked away with a Q and a 1st place. All thanks to Anne!!! It's really great to have an awesome and knowledgeable instructor :)

Jump Height

Something interesting has taken place at the past couple of trials, so I thought it would be a good time to mention jump height.

There are several different jump heights that determine the height of the jumps, tire, and table, as well as the length of the broad jump. The height that a dog is supposed to jump at is based on the dog's height at the withers (shoulders). In particular, for AKC the standard jump heights are as follows (straight from the rule book):
8 Inches: For dogs 11 inches and under at the withers.
12 Inches: For dogs 14 inches and under at the withers.
16 Inches: For dogs 18 inches and under at the withers.
20 Inches: For dogs 22 inches and under at the withers.
24 Inches: For dogs over 22 inches at the withers.
26 Inches: Dogs may be entered at this height at their owner’s discretion.

Dogs are also allowed to enter one jump height lower, but that puts them into the preferred class, which is a bit separate from the standard dogs. There are some limitations for it too, for example preferred dogs can't get a MACH - the highest Agility title.

The rule for measuring the dog is that the dog can't get a permanent jump height assigned to them until they are 2 years old (fully grown). When they turn 2, they have to get 2 official measurements by 2 different judges to determine their jump height. Since Philip's second birthday was just a month ago, we got our first official measurement at the last trial, and the second one today.

Here's the interesting part though. The Pembroke Welsh Corgi standard allows for dogs between 10 and 12 inches tall, so they tend to fall either into 8 or 12 inch jump height for Agility. Philip has been measured by our instructor and a few judges before, always coming in at just above 11", so I've been entering him into the 12" jump height.

However, at his first official measurement last weekend, the judge said he was coming up at 10.8 inches. I thought she made a mistake, so I asked her to try again, and she got him at 11 inches high. I was surprised, but hey - if we could get another measurement at 11" we'd get to move down to 8" jump height, so I wasn't about to complain.

This Saturday we got our second measurement, lo and behold - Philip came in at 11" inches again! That means that we have two official measurements of 11" and so that officially puts us permanently into the 8" jump height. This is very exciting, lower height = better! Not only is it easier to jump, it's also much better for the joints.

We should be getting our permanent jump height in the mail in about a month, and we moved down to 8" for the trial this weekend. We'll also be entering 8" at all future AKC trials, though we still have to stay at 12" for USDAA since they don't actually have an 8" height.