Talk:Dog agility
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Is it fair to say that although it was first seen at Crufts in '78, many of the basic "tricks" have been part of police dog (and presumably army dog) training for much longer than that ? -- Finlay McWalter 00:37, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Good point. I'm not familiar with those areas and so hesitate to say anything at all. Feel free to add an appropriate note with possible links. -- User:Elf
- Well, I dunno, but the police HQ near by home has always (I _think_ since before '78) had little walls and ramps for the dogs and I think they're supposed to jump through hoops too. I'm not sure enough to make the change, however. -- Finlay McWalter 01:04, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- On seeing the obstacle pictures, it looks exactly how I remember the police dog training regime to be. Fortified by this, I put in a mention that the original had elements of both policedog training and sheepdog trails. -- Finlay McWalter 17:52, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I was trying to add metric equivalents to the dog agility page. Instead of simply converting the (presumably US derived) measurements, I decided to look around the world at the various rules and see if I could find dimensions in metric numbers. For example, the current page says that the ramp should be 8 ft long but some countries say that it can be 3 m long. Of course, with 200 countries it is difficult to find a consensus (even if I could read all the languages). So I looked for a source that is reasonably acceptable as a reference.
I found the following document at a South African site
http://www.agilitylinksa.netfirms.com/Links/ial_regulations_4-0.pdf
which gives fairly comprehensive metric and non-metric values. I am not a dog agility expert. Do you guys think it is a good source for using here?
Bobblewik 19:06, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Wow--like, actual research! :-) I double-checked a couple of things and fixed some US measurements in this article to be more accurate. IAL is interesting because its rules were created about 6-7 years ago by active (and sometimes vehement) negotiation among agility enthusiasts around the world in an attempt to come up with equipment specifications that at least somewhat resembled what most organizations were doing at the time. So its measurements represent sometimes an average, sometimes a majority, sometimes a compromise. What I have in the article at the moment attempts to capture the wide range of rules among different organizations. For example, here in the U.S., NADAC requires that the Aframe be no more than 5 feet high; USDAA requires it to be 6 foot 3 inches high; CPE goes as low as 4'8". NADAC and USDAA have 36" yellow contact zones on the teeter and dogwalk but CPE uses 42". CPE and AKC require 24" openings in the tire jump; USDAA wants no more than 20". And that's just in the U.S.! So I attempted to put what I know about American & international measurements into he article, hence some really wide ranges (e.g., dogwalk planks 8-12 feet). Soooo... I suggest starting with what I have in the article; feel free to compare to IAL and ask any questions about things that, to an outsider, might seem odd or wrong or confusing--because this article, I presume, will be read by more outsiders than agility experts! At least I hope so. :-) Elf | Talk 19:43, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
To Elf and others, as a longtime agility competitor and new Wikipedian, I really like this page very much. It is a cogent and understandable explanation of the sport. I think it does credit to both dog agility and Wikipedia.
Regarding the discussion of police dog work, isn't that taken care of by a link to Schutzhund? -- Jimhutchins 12:06, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
How is a 270 degree turn different from a 90 degree turn? Is it actually necessary for the dog to turn more than half way around, rather than just turning directly to its new path...?
- Yes indeed! If I get a chance, I might try making some course diagrams. Sometime. Eventually. Meanwhile, picture this overhead view of two jumps:
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- The dog goes out over the jump numbered 1 and travels around to his right, making a 270-degree turn, then comes in over jump 2.
Elf | Talk 15:54, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
History questions
When did USDAA introduce different titles? Different games? What was evolution of sport in England? When did FCI recognize agility? When was 1st international ch? When did it first take place in various other countries? Why did Nelson split off from USDAA? What happened to NCDA and AAAI?
Prairie Dawgs Agility
I'm a bit concerned about this company. They've added one advertising page to Wikipedia which was deleted as spam. This is the second time that they've added a link to their company web site. I've removed it from this article because I think it is of local interest only and doesn't have the broad (often international) applicability of the other links. I'm also concerned that they're trying use Wikipedia to pad their Google rank and sell product.
If someone who is a more regular editor of this page has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I'm assuredly not an expert on this topic, and if the consensus is that their site ([1] (http://www.prairiedawgsagility.com/)) adds substantial information not present in the existing external links then it should go back. --TenOfAllTrades 02:41, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I agree with you; I've removed it at least once myself. If they're not reading the history or the talk page to see why their link was removed, there's really nothing to do but to be patient and keep removing it. Eventually such things usually go away from exhaustion. It's not really vandalism, particularly with only one or two links here and there. Elf | Talk 14:04, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)