Greetings and Explanations

Monday, May 20, 2013

I really wish I'd started this blog a year ago, when Mr. Darcy and I first began our quest to get to the National Invitational. But I didn't think about it at the time. I figure better late than never, even if the qualifying period is almost over. I can tell you about what exactly the "National Invitational" is and some of what we've been going through for the past year. I'll try to keep this post from getting too long. I may add more detail in future posts. Eventually, posts will be more about what's happening right now, not so much about what's been happening for the past year.

First, in case you don't know, Mr. Darcy is my six-year-old (as of two days ago--his birthday is May 18) Portuguese Water Dog. We compete as a team in the sport of Dog Agility. For a description of what that is, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_agility.

The National Invitational is a unique dog agility event sponsored by the AKC. Other big national competitions in agility, sponsored by AKC or by other venues such as USDAA, are based purely on merit. Nothing wrong with that! But the National Invitational is different because it is based partly on merit (how good your team is) and partly on breed. So it's a little different. Here is basically how it works: The qualifying period for the Invitational is a whole year. It begins on July 1 and ends on June 30. At the end of the year, the AKC sends out invitations to the top five teams in every breed, nationwide. So to qualify, Mr. D and I have been competing in agility for nearly a year, and the only other teams we're worried about (as far as the Invitational is concerned) is the other Portuguese Water Dog teams. Sometime shortly after June 30, the AKC will send out invitations to the top five PWD teams (and all the other breeds, too). If the top five teams all accept the invitation, then everything is set. If one or more teams say "No thanks," then invitations go out to the next team (or teams) until there are five teams for each breed. The Invitational itself is held in mid-December in Orlando.

At the Invitational, we will compete in three opening rounds. It is imperative that during these opening rounds our runs are all mistake-free. Clean trumps speed. After the three opening rounds, the top 10 dogs at each jump height go to the finals, with the caveat that no more than one dog of any breed (within a particular jump height) can go to the finals. So even though Border Collies, for example, are usually faster than PWDs, only one BC can get to the finals. So the key is to be reasonably fast, but perfectly clean. Then go for broke in the finals.

We actually tried to qualify for the Invitational two years ago, starting on July 1, 2011. It quickly became apparent that we were not ready. We stopped trying for that and began to train more intensively. Then we started again on July 1, 2012. The thing about the Invitational is, for a year you have to trial a LOT, and you have to be very consistent. Mr. D and I have certainly trialled a lot--75% or 80% of the weekends for the past year, many of them for three days. (I believe our total number of trial days for the year will end up being around 100 days!) We have struggled sometimes with consistency, but have made up for it with speed. Because we are trialling so much, we don't have a lot of time for training. Weekend seminars are pretty much out (that's when we're busy trialling). We do go to classes a couple of times a week. We also work in our backyard pretty regularly. But both of us also need downtime, so we can't do too much training. I have learned to do certain kinds of training in the ring, during competitions, too, which has been a big step forward in my development.

There is one PWD in the competition this year who is extremely consistent. His name is Rowdy Jack Tar. Nearly all of his runs are clean. He has finished first among PWDs in the year-long qualifying for the last several years. (We've never met him because he trials in the Indiana-Michigan area.) Although he is very accurate, I am told he is not as fast as we are. (We aspire to his level of consistency!) Nonetheless he consistently finishes way ahead of all the other PWDs in the qualifying period. So, in addition to qualifying for the invitational, we have had another goal: beat Rowdy Jack Tar and qualify first. So far we are in first place. We'll see what happens over the next month and a half!

I think that's enough for now. I'll write more about my ever-changing state of mind, maybe post a video, etc., in the next day or two.

Rob and Mr. Darcy