Five Fault Club

How NZ Agility Works: The National Level

This post is one of a two-part series on how our sport is administered in New Zealand. DogsNZ are currently conducting consultation on changes to their structure, but I thought an explainer on how things currently work would be helpful for newer agility folk who want to understand what’s going on.

Dogs New Zealand (DNZ/NZKC)

Dogs New Zealand is the new name for what used to be called the New Zealand Kennel Club. It is basically a federation of clubs that are involved in dog showing and dog sports.

All clubs that run agility shows (or any other shows) must belong to Dogs NZ, but not all clubs are considered equal. There are “affiliated” clubs, which run championship all-breeds conformation shows. Then there are “associated” clubs, which are all the rest – the ones that run conformation shows which are limited to particular breeds, and the ones that run shows in any of the other codes under the DogsNZ umbrella – agility, obedience, rally-o, scentwork, tracking/working trials etc.

All people who compete in championship agility events (or in championship shows for most other DogsNZ codes) must be individual DogsNZ members. They must also be members of a DogsNZ member club, and that is how they get representation in DogsNZ decisions – individuals don’t have a lot of power to get things done within the DogsNZ structure.

DogsNZ has a small paid workforce of about 8 people who look after the admin and accounting of the organisation. These are the people who send you the bill for your membership each year, collate and publish the Dog World, do most of the show secretary work for the National Dog Show, and much more besides. Some of them have been with DogsNZ for quite a few years and I’ve usually found them very helpful.

Annual Conference of Delegates (ACOD)

The Annual Conference of Delegates is the DogsNZ equivalent of an AGM – the place where the members get together to discuss the direction of the club, elect a new batch of officials, and vote on any substantial changes that have been proposed. It happens in Wellington each winter.

Agility Training with Food

If you ask Google for tutorials about tugging and toy play for agility, you’ll get thousands of hits, and most of them will be quite relevant.

If you ask Google for tutorials about training agility with food, you’ll get … not a lot that’s relevant. A mix of dog food ads, and blog posts telling you that it’s really important to get your agility dog tugging and yes you can do it even if your dog is only interested in food.

Tug toys are great. I view them as the gold standard choice of reward for many agility training exercises. Virtually all of the top agility competitors, both in NZ and around the world, use tug toys for a lot of their training. This is why the content you’ll find online is so heavily skewed towards “So you want to do agility but your dog doesn’t like tugging? Here’s how you can invest hours of your life into getting him tugging!”.

But what if you don’t want to do that? What if you have limited time to train and want to make progress on “real agility” skills rather than tugging? What if you want to try agility training or competition, but you don’t have elite ambitions for your dog and you’d rather just use food? What if it’s your first agility dog and you don’t have the skills to teach your dog to enjoy tugging with only the guidance of a 15-minute video on YouTube?

Sometimes tug toys aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Especially when they’re stuck on a cactus.

Agility Competition Paperwork (2023 update)

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about the paperwork you need to do before entering your first agility competition. A few things have changed since then, so here’s an up-to-date version with everything you need to know.

Step Zero: Check Your Dog’s Birthday

Your dog must be at least 18 months old to enter any agility show.

Step 1: Join a Dogs NZ Affiliated Club

For most people this is an easy one. If the club you train at holds shows, and you’re a current member there, you’re covered.

There are a couple of non-affiliated clubs I’m aware of, in more sparsely populated parts of the country. If you’ve been training at one of these, or you’ve been training on your own, you’ll need to find a club to join. I generally recommend joining the nearest one (even if that is several hours’ drive away) as you may have access to members-only seminars or other events there.

Technically this is optional if you are going to enter a ribbon trial for your first show – but I recommend doing it anyway, as you’ll likely find the members very welcoming and supportive on the big day.

Step 2: Join Dogs New Zealand

Ideally your first show would be at a ribbon trial – a smaller, less formal show that is designed to help people dip their toes into the competition water. One of the benefits of starting at a ribbon trial is that you don’t have to join Dogs NZ, so it’s much cheaper. If you are planning to enter a ribbon trial first, you can skip ahead to Step 3.

Your First Agility Show: Running Your Dog

This is the third in a three-part series on what to expect at your first show. So far I’ve covered what to pack, and the general dos and don’ts at agility shows – now let’s talk about the main event, your actual debut run!

Arriving at the Ring on Time

The general rule of thumb in agility is to allow one minute per dog. This can be quite variable in Elementary and Jumpers C classes though, because the courses are often quite short and fast to run, but some inexperienced dogs and handlers will take a lot longer to get round.

The running order will be displayed on the call board, near the ring entrance. You should always check this after walking the course – even if you’ve brought along your own copy – because it might show you that some other dogs have scratched, and you’ll be earlier than you thought. If you’re not in the first 10 or so dogs, the best approach is to hang out where you can see the ring, count the dogs as they run, and check on the board every now and then.

Your First Agility Show: Outside the Ring

In the last post I went through a list of things to pack. Now the big day’s arrived and you’ve turned up at your first agility show! This post covers the etiquette for hanging out at an agility show with your dog all day. Part 3 will look at what you should actually do before, during and after your run.

When You Arrive

Drive into the show venue slowly – there may be dogs running around off lead.
For your first show, it’s best to turn up at least 15 minutes before your first course walk. This gives you a chance to walk your dog around the venue and let her see the sights.

Your First Agility Show: What to Bring

This week I’m bringing you a three-part series on what to expect at your first agility show. Competing can be great fun, but it’s always daunting to start something new when you don’t know the dos and don’ts. I hope these guides help you to have an enjoyable debut with your dog.

The Basics

Your dog. I can tell you from first-hand experience that in a multi-dog household, it is actually possible to leave home minus one of the dogs you were planning to compete with…
Collar with no tags. The only collars allowed in the agility ring are flat collars with one D-ring no attachments. This means no slip or martingale type collars, and no council or contact info tags. If your collar doesn’t meet the rules, you can either take it off before each run, or keep a dedicated collar that you put on for agility shows. Some people like to swap collars the night before so that there’s one less thing to do on the morning of the show.

The New Graduation Points Threshold in Practice

I’ve already explained what’s changing about graduation points, but for those who want the short version of how graduation points will work in 2023:

In a class with 16 dogs, 2nd place will get 1 graduation point. If there’s 31 dogs, 2nd place gets 2 points, and 3rd place gets 1. And so on and so on, every time the class size goes up by 15, there are more points on offer.
3 graduation points “counts” as one win to graduate to the next level – BUT you also need at least one 1st placing. You can move up to Senior with 2 wins and 3 points in Novice, or 1 win and 6 points. If you have 9 points but no wins, you’ll be staying put.
Graduation points can only be earned if you go clear.

Today I’ll look at a few examples of how things would work, considering Novice classes from 2022. I’ve chosen to focus on Novice because this is usually the largest class which dogs can graduate out of, so the effects might be more significant here.

Real World Example #1 – Very Large Show

Let’s consider the Novice 500 classes at this year’s NZDAC. These had between 111 and 115 entries.

Second place would have earned 7 points, and third place would have earned 6 points. Remember that 3 points is equivalent to a win, but you still need at least one actual win to graduate. Any dog getting 2nd or 3rd in Novice 500 at this year’s NZDAC would have 6+ graduation points (2 win equivalents), and only require one win to move up to Senior. It’s actually possible for these dogs to move up to Senior with just 2 clear rounds in Novice – their placing at the NZDAC and their win.

35 Years of NZ Agility Graduation System History

There have been some changes to the criteria for earning graduation points introduced in the new regulations on 1 January 2023. I found it hard to explain what graduation points are without putting them into historical context, so here’s a brief tour of how the graduation system in NZ has changed over the years.

In the Beginning…

Once upon a time there were two height groups (760mm and 380mm) and no splits. The first NZKC agility rules came into effect on 1 July 1987. I went to my first agility show in around 1994. There were definitely not a lot of dogs competing in agility yet, and most shows were only one day so people tended not to travel very far. There were people winning with dogs of all sizes, from German Shepherds to Shelties.

What’s Happening with AD and ADXA Classes?

Our new regs come into force next month, and I’ve had a few people ask me questions about what the changes to AD and ADXA mean for them. I’ve had my head under a rock, mostly because it doesn’t really affect me – I have an older dog who is more or less retired, and a young dog who is yet to achieve his first clear round.

As an instructor I feel like I should know the answer so that I can give newer competitors a better answer than “go and look at the regs”, so here we are – the most common AD and ADX questions answered.

What’s this all about?

The last standalone AD and ADXA classes have now been run. Starting from next year, you’ll have an opportunity to earn AD and ADXA clear rounds at every champ agility show – but these will be on regular courses that you can also win ribbons in.

At each show the club will nominate one Novice class to be the AD course, and one Intermediate class to be the ADXA class. You don’t need to do anything special for your clear rounds in these classes to count towards titles – just enter them like you would any other class.

Able at 18 Months

Today was Able’s “agility birthday”. He’s now old enough to compete at an agility show. He celebrated his birthday by running a wee course I set up for him with a few friends.

Able is still very enthusiastic about life, and is the only dog I’ve had who was still eager to play with strange dogs at this age. He also still thinks human feet are hilariously funny, and tends to pounce on them when he’s greeting people. It has been challenging at times to work with such a large and excessively friendly young dog – the time he headbutted me and broke my glasses was not a highlight – but his focus for me has improved so much and his little quirks are just what makes Able Able.

Unfortunately Able has been diagnosed with epilepsy, and what with this and other things, he’s had almost no training over the last two months. He started a new medication last month which made him very drunk and severely affected his control over his back legs for a couple of weeks. He has improved a lot now so he’s been doing some agility training again this week, but we have an awful lot of things on our todo list.

Epilepsy is such a frustrating condition. Unlike the other diseases my dogs have had over the years, there’s no way to do bloodwork and quantify how bad it is. The only thing that can be measured is how many days or weeks apart his seizures are. This makes it difficult to get a clear prognosis for his future. It’s also impossible to know whether his meds (which currently cost $9/day) are having any effect at all, until he’s been on them for several months and I can compare the frequency of seizures over time.

If we find meds that work for him, he’ll be on them for life. Some of common anti-epileptic drugs in dogs can cause organ damage over time, which is pretty scary when I have a young, otherwise healthy dog. They also need to be given at the same time of day every single day, which means my social activities have to be carefully pre-meditated.

All of this (plus the fact that he’s an enormous galumph of a dog even when he’s not on meds) means that Able is not as far forward with his training as my other dogs were at this stage. I haven’t started his weaves yet, and he’s only had one session of Aframe training. Hopefully we can make some progress on this before the ribbon trials in August, but I am keeping my expectations pretty modest at this stage. We may need to train in the ring at our first shows, but I’m hoping that we will be ready to tackle the courses at NZDAC in a few months’ time.