Zoey earns her NJC

[CardiCorgiOwner]

Zoey had a good weekend at our local NADAC trial. She was entered in three classes (2 jumpers and 1 tunnelers) and she qualified in two of them (jumpers on saturday, tunnelers today) with first place wins in both!

She earned her novice jumpers title (NJC) but the most amazing part of the weekend was how fast she ran. Both days in jumpers she ran at 5.9 yards per second! She beat almost all of the 16 and 20 inch dogs in novice jumpers!

NADAC trial February 2007

I'm so proud of her!

Kristine

[dcole]

Way to go Zoey!

BTW, I love your avatar. Is that your Riley on the skateboard?

-Debi

[Michael Romanos]

Zoey has done exceptionally well. Congrats. We have jumpers in competitions here (New Zealand) as a novelty event tagged onto the end of a meeting. Sometimes there is a jumpers for novices as well as an open jumpers. But usually it is the latter. So some of the jumpers events can be very complex.
We don't have tunneling events and I wouldn't know what that really means other than competitors racing through several tunnels. But in our jumpers events, they include tunnels and long jumps
.
Two things here that you wouldn't want a bar of are that all size dogs compete against each other so that Corgis compete against midis and maxis; and the jump height for minis (which include Corgis) are set at 380mm (16 inches) whereas in the USA they are at 300mm (12 inches) - so it is a lot more difficult here to get a plumpy, pint legged Corgi successfully over every jump.

Yeah, Corgis can go real quick and it is great that Zoey is so toey. Taylor is usually reasonably fast - he has been as high as fourth placing among 80-90 dogs - but on a real hot day, he doesn't want to get out of second gear.

[Dillydoodle]

That is awesome! Zoey did great! congrats!!! I read the page link you provided and I love Zoey's look, so pretty!
Emilie

[CardiCorgiOwner]

Originally Posted by dcole

Way to go Zoey!

BTW, I love your avatar. Is that your Riley on the skateboard?

-Debi

Yep...my avatar is one of my favorite Riley photos...it was taken about 2 years ago for a story that appeared in our local newspaper.

[CardiCorgiOwner]

Originally Posted by Michael Romanos

Zoey has done exceptionally well. Congrats. We have jumpers in competitions here (New Zealand) as a novelty event tagged onto the end of a meeting. Sometimes there is a jumpers for novices as well as an open jumpers. But usually it is the latter. So some of the jumpers events can be very complex.
We don't have tunneling events and I wouldn't know what that really means other than competitors racing through several tunnels. But in our jumpers events, they include tunnels and long jumps
.
Two things here that you wouldn't want a bar of are that all size dogs compete against each other so that Corgis compete against midis and maxis; and the jump height for minis (which include Corgis) are set at 380mm (16 inches) whereas in the USA they are at 300mm (12 inches) - so it is a lot more difficult here to get a plumpy, pint legged Corgi successfully over every jump.

Yeah, Corgis can go real quick and it is great that Zoey is so toey. Taylor is usually reasonably fast - he has been as high as fourth placing among 80-90 dogs - but on a real hot day, he doesn't want to get out of second gear.

I am very thankful for the way the US has set up its agility and obedience programs. I've heard that in the UK, there are classes for Border Collies and then "ABC" classes (Anything but a Border Collie). Here in the US, all breeds are (more or less) treated equally. All of the agility organizations use many jump heights (from 4 inches up to 26 inches) so dogs generally don't have to jump heigher than their shoulder height. And, for most titles, you don't have to defeat any other dogs...you simply have to pass enough times and you get the title.

Our course times are also pretty generous so even the slower breeds can often title. In my area there are several Basset Hounds that have earned agility titles.

[CardiCorgiOwner]

Originally Posted by Dillydoodle

That is awesome! Zoey did great! congrats!!! I read the page link you provided and I love Zoey's look, so pretty!
Emilie

Thanks! I was really proud of how well she did!

[Lovemycorgi]

Kristine,
Congratulations to you and Zoey! By the way, I really enjoy your site. A wonderful set-up, etc. Did you do the site yourself?
Edna

[ZdogZ]

Good job, Zoey!

[Michael Romanos]

We could have a good discussion on agility competitions and the way they are set up. New Zealanders like meaningful titles and so competition is geared here to that end. Other than the stupid all sizes-in competitions, our events are similar to a world championship event, so the competition structure is set at a high level and every kind of title (which there are relatively few) have to be well earned. This I believe does not suit the American psyche which revels in giving every dog a chance to win something and so you have all these variations and strings of titles.
I would like though to win a title with Taylor and his best chance is what we call here a basic AD. This involves achieving two clear rounds within a strict time frame, involving intermediete type courses which includes every kind of obstacle and contact as well as a table (for jumping onto and going into the down position for five seconds) and a seesaw contact. To date, I have yet to train Taylor on the seesaw and need to focus on that. He is not happy with a seesaw so I'll get a plank and put a small block of wood underneath it and start him practicing from tomorrow at very low heights and with a gentle downward thrust. In NZ our competition seesaws are set at the height as for big dogs.
You mentioned the UK and a separation of Border Collies from other breeds in competition. This is of course the organisation that only allows pedigree dogs to compete. In NZ any dog breed and non-breed can enter into competition. Our best competitors are Border Collies (of course) and farm Heading Dogs (which are mixed breeds with usually some Border Collie).

[jprechel]

Congratulations Zoey! We are very impressed. Our cardigan, Ace, just had his first agility class this past weekend. We hope someday to have some of the success that Zoey has had in agility. Keep up the good work!