Hi Maria, (my main computer is down so can't respond to emails).  This is a general answer too.

My trainer reset jumpers and standard from nationals. I ran both courses last night. They were so different than at nationals. She also competed at nationals and did her best to set them correctly. I couldn't even run them the way I ran them at nationals.

At nationals - the courses were huge. Lots of yardage.  Also, you can never set the angles of jumps the same. Even at nationals - there was a difference between the two rings (22" dogs ran in one ring and all other heights in the other). I had friends who ran multiple heights with their dogs and they talked about the differences of the courses. So even there - they couldn't duplicate the rings.

With that - it makes such a difference in times. I really don't think you can get a fair assessment to compare to. Last night - the courses were not as spread out - which reduced the yardage by a good amount. It also made some of the push out challenges easier - and put you in a better position for the next part of the course. Also, reduced some refusal issues of a bigger course.

To best try to set the courses - figure every part of the area was used. The dogs weren't far off the tape for the start/finish and each corner was pretty much used. But...I just don't think you can really compare times.

 I never heard briefings (were there any?) and never heard any yardages.  On Della's standard ribbon it says 390 yards - but I don't see how it could have been that long.  I never heard max course times.

Renee Weider

Hi Renee

 Thanks for that. I know how difficult it is to duplicate a course on the ground as they always end up slightly different but it would just be good to have a rough idea if we have at the very least got the course length least right.

 I have emailed USDAA to see if someone there can help me out.

 As I said we (Australia) aren't able to get to any overseas comps so it is the only way of knowing whether our dogs are running at a comparable rate of travel. I know it won't be 100% accurate and the only way to compare properly is to run on exactly the same course in the same conditions but unfortunately we don't have that option.

Hopefully one day our laws will change in regards to taking dogs overseas and we may have the chance to have a team over to the WC's. And then all I would have to do is to qualify to get in team!!! Sounds like a good pipe dream doesn't it???

 See ya

 Maria Thiry

If you  get the course lengths from USDAA or someone - please let me know or post here.  I'd love to know too!

Why can't you travel?  It's a Aust. policy?  It would be great for you guys to compete here at these events.  Lots of other countries get here - but obviously they don't have the restrictions you must have.

I guess if you don't get any official answers on course length - you can do a virtual "wheeling" of the courses.  Each box is 10' and you can figure out the average dog's path (depending on size of dog you're calculating) and see if that makes sense.  I think I tried that with the Jumpers and came up with 200 yards.

Also, figure that the top dogs were running at pretty explosive speeds and not using any additional yardage (very efficient).  Most dogs not holding contacts.  So, not so much by time comparison - but if your dogs are running to that description - it might be similar to here.  One tiny bobble or extra steps added split seconds which knocked dogs way down.

In Della's standard run, the dog in 7th place was 3/100's sec faster than Della (8th place).  9th place was 2/100's behind her and 10th was 6/100th's off Della.  (36.21/36.24/36.26/36.30).  It was amazing.

Hopefully we'll see you guys over here in the next few years!

Renee

http://usdaa.com/binary/news/GPFinals.pdf you can go here to get the times and yds for the finals  

Team jumpers , Team std and both rounds of STP, are time plus faults so these courses are not measured,

Hey Renee

When I transferred the course onto course design I tried to be as accurate as possible and then once it was down I used the dog's path tool to try and work out the length. Just wanted to see how close I was. I have done this before on courses I have found on the internet (WC's and US courses) that have lengths and I have ususally been pretty close.

Our country has one month quarantine (used to be 6 months!) when the dogs come back into the country and that is only if you go to approved countries. We don't have any rabies in the country so they are really paranoid about it coming in.

Anyway I guess some people might be happy to leave their dogs in quarantine for that long but I can't imagine doing that. On top of that, where they keep the dogs for quarantine isn't in the same city that I live in and the closest one is 10 hrs drive away. So you couldn't even go and visit the dogs everyday.

There is talk that they will change this but I suspect that they won't be in a hurry to do it.

I will let you know if the USDAA get back to me but I am not very hopeful as I am sure they have more important things to do.

See ya

Maria

Hey Judy

 Thanks for the info. I must have looked at the Team results and not seen any course length so I assumed that they all didn't have them. I was also wondering why I couldn't see any time faults in the team jumping round as I thought if I could find out a mct I might be able to work out the length from that. Now it makes sense as to why I couldn't find that either.

 At least I know the course length is very close to what I had when I transferred the final to Course Designer. Of course it was probably different on the ground but hopefully not too different.

 Thanks again for your help.

 Maria Thiry