Clean Run Magazine - January 2007 - 34

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Course Design: Changes By Robin Whitsell Agility, like all sports, has
grown and adapted as it has gained popularity and more people have joined
the sport. Various venues have evolved—altering their rules, equipment
requirements, time requirements, games, and safety expectations as more
enthusiasts compete at higher levels. If you feel like agility courses
just get more and more challenging the longer you are in the sport, our
experts are here to tell you that you are probably right. But also
handlers, dogs, and judges have become faster, more efficient on the
course, and better trained. Clean Run explores the way that course design
is evolving the sport of agility, one event at a time. have changed over
the years is a drastic understatement…. When AKC agility first began
more than 10 years ago, the majority of the competitors had shown in some
other venue, such as USDAA. However, it only made sense that the AKC would
want to reach out to people who were new to agility, but who had competed
in other AKC events, such as obedience,” says AKC judge Webb Anderson.
“Obedience dogs are taught to work under tight control and to work on
the handler’s left side. Consequently, most of the Novice agility
courses we saw in the early days were very straightforward, requiring
fewer side switches than we see now. And for the determined handler, the
courses could be run with the dog on the handler’s left side, in effect
‘heeling’ the dog around the entire course. My, how things have
changed!” Some course changes have been fueled by the quality of the
competitors themselves. According to Marquand Cheek, USDAA and AKC
competitor and AKC judge, “Dogs are faster and more accurate today as a
result of better training, handling improvements from handson instruction,
and media: Clean Run magazine, books, and videos. Handlers have also
focused on improving their physical skills and on distance control as most
dogs can outrun their handlers. ” Faster weaves, course layouts with
sharper turns and tougher angles, and more careful handling through
obstacles is required now since all venues have evolved. The idea of a dog
“heeled” on the course has pretty much gone away because of the speed
required to complete courses within the standard course time. For judges
and course designers, often part of their training involves looking for
just these sorts of challenges to actua l l y make a course more advanced.
“I have been told by reviewers, when designing courses, to look for the
potential for making courses harder just by tweaking the angles of jumps.
Sometimes the slightest thing can throw off the fast Border Collie, and
looking at approach angles to jumps and lines and paths is very important.
I don’t think people thought about that as much 10 years ago, ” says
USDAA, CPE, and TDAA judge Trisha Stall. The challenge of determining the
correct approach and creating the possibility of a refusal adds a new
twist to course design that previously wa s r a r e . “A K C a l m o s t
exclusively determines course challenges by the amount of off-course
opportunities and adds requirements for minimum changes of side. USDAA
appear s to also include difficulty of approach to jumps that can increase
risk of runouts/refusals. A USDAA judge would have to confirm this
suspicion, but I see a lot more jumps at difficult approach angles in
USDAA than in AKC. A refusal call in AKC Excellent and USDAA Masters is a
non-qualifying score, so it makes sense to include tough angles as
challenges. Severity and challenge assessment may be why that is excluded
from AKC challenge counts, ” says Cheek. Clean Run | January 07 Perfect
Approach Along with course speeds and sharper angles, approaches to
obstacles have taken on a new priority. According to 7-time USA agility
team member, 12-time USDAA finalist, and world champion Dr. Stuart Mah,
“Over the past years courses have tended to become more technically
oriented with harder, quicker turns required to avoid problems. This
doesn’t mean that the courses 17 years ago weren’t technical in
nature. It just means that there were fewer technical courses
percentage-wise relative to the whole volume of courses. Also the average
space between obstacles seems to be slightly less than years ago. Less
space ” and more technical courses mean more precise handling and,
specifically, perfect approaches. At the highest levels of competition, an
entry angle to an obstacle could shave off the fractions of a second needed
to beat the competition. This is particularly true with approaches to the
weave poles. “Weave pole approaches have and continue to increase in
difficulty, says Cheek. ” Tighter, Faster, More Precise As the sport of
agility has matured, handlers and dogs have had to adapt to courses that
are designed to be run tighter and faster. Thus, competitors necessarily
have to be much more precise with their handling and faster with their
cues. Each venue has adapted in its own unique way. For AKC fans, original
courses tapped into the pre-existing obedience skills of their handlers and
didn’t have the kind of time requirements that currently differentiate
the course. Some of these competitors and judges wanted to maintain a
focus on the obedience aspect of the sport instead of speed and precis i o
n . “To say that courses 34 Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid
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Clean Run Magazine - January 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - January 2007