We have camp at Country Dream this week. And we have camp again next week. Both are relatively small camps so I’m taking the opportunity to get my young dogs out for work and socialization among dogs they don’t usually get to see. This week we have a number of small dogs, all of whom I am putting on Teacup equipment. We have a trial here in July… and, of course, I need to get ready for the Petit Prix later this year.

Tomorrow I’m off early to Buffalo, NY. I wanted to take a moment to share with you at least one of the courses we’ll be running.

This isn’t a terribly technical standard course. I suppose that I can get away with forward publishing of a course I’ll be judging only in the TDAA. I wouldn’t dream of doing so in another venue. Not many people will go out to set up equipment to practice an upcoming course riddle. Maybe my confidence in the fundamental honesty of people is misplaced.

At the TDAA Petit Prix reception I was honored by my peers, given a nice plaque and had conferred upon me a lifetime membership to the organization. My grandma would certainly approve that it has a monetary value! They made me make a little speech for which I was in no ways prepared. I find the whole thing a little humbling because I try hard enough out in the world to be just “one of the guys”. The truth of it all is, though I started the TDAA, the real champions are the small dog people out there that recognized that there is a venue that is designed specifically for them—and not for Border Collies—and oh by the way they’ll take your money anyhow. It’s tough times to be a champion of anything in dog sports because of the mindless regard the world gives to the AKC and the funny notion that when they get an AKC title they’ve really done something.

Okay, the TDAA Petit Prix is over and I am on the road. I didn’t really make it very far… to Champaign-Urbana to be exact. I’ve holed up in a Red Roof Inn for $37.95 a night. And my poor tired puppy dogs are already crashed like a bomb has gone off. It was a long tough day for them.

Exactly as I thought… the competition is tougher this year than any in the past. The TDAA reflects as in every other venue progress in dog training and better handling. As for my own dogs, Bogie is probably a walk into the final round in the 16” division; Hazard continues her canny qualifying streak and has won placements in every event at 8”… and even won the standard class. Birdie is struggling a bit, although he is having a lot of fun. He missed a contact in Gamblers Anonymous that cost him 230 points. Otherwise I wouldn’t be fretting getting him into the final round.

We’re undergoing a transformation in our sport that will have important consequences to exhibitors, agility organizations, training clubs, and training service providers… the semi-pro//recreational schism. I see the break in the community very clearly. The seed of the transformation was planted pretty much as the sport began in this country. But for the longest time the vast majority of our numbers came from the family dog of any breed with an emphasis on the recreational benefit of playing the game.

One of the interesting benefits of play in the TDAA that I’ve found is how so many of the small dogs are turning on to the game and having a wonderful epiphany. In the big dog venues the long transitional distance between obstacles are a bit of a drag on the dog; while in the TDAA the action comes fast and fantastic. An equally dramatic benefit is that the handlers of the big dogs in the TDAA (that would be 12” and 16”) become better handlers because their timing must improve in order to survive. This was one of objectives of the TDAA that the challenge for small dogs and their handlers compares to that for the big fast dogs in the big dog venues. Both dog and handler take back to the big dog venues these newfound discoveries of excitement and skill.

One thing that sets the TDAA apart from the dog agility venues is that the Championship titling program (TACh) requires beyond a demonstrable expertise in mastering the standard course the ability to qualify and even win nearly any sort of game imaginable. Those venues that have multiple games, like the USDAA and CPE, have defined a specific number of games and hold only these as their titling games. Not so with the TDAA. In the TDAA you can literally be called upon to play nearly any agility game imaginable. And we do.

The TDAA Petit Prix will feature a Jumpers run in the semi-final rounds. There’s no real way to anticipate what a judge might do in designing a challenge for jumpers. It could be anything at all.