this is a note from my friend & fellow-trainer, Marla -
i quote her description with permission, as i am not an agility-person & she is nationally ranked.
YouTube - ‪Marla and Sage Exc Standard 5-14-11‬‏


U can see that both jumps fall, after Sage plows into the uprights & knocks it down - luckily,
i don't think Marla or Sage were hurt.

the judge who designed this AKC-course was Terry Culley. Another competitor, Katie McCormick,
said this double-wide jump would be hard for dogs to see, & that she'd seen side-by-side *winged* jumps
before, but never wingless. Apparently Culley has a reputation for 'tough' courses & some people have
complained that in their opinion, he's designed hazardous courses or included dangerous obstacles
in his past designs, but that of course varies - other folks think his courses are just difficult.

This particular run was in San Diego, Calif, & some folks said that Culley had used the same design
the previous week in another state. A formal complaint was made to the agility division of the AKC -
hopefully they will ban this particular combo, so that no other judges have the option of including
side-by-side wingless jumps; as competitors get more skilled & speed is less of a deciding factor,
judges are beginning to push the envelope on safety & physical ability.

Marla did tell Mr Culley she would not trial under him again - i do not blame her in the least, my partner's safety
would be my first concern, & i would have been badly shaken by this - checking my dog for injury would be
the very first thing, after exiting the course! hopefully AKC-agility will act without delay, and no other
judges will be allowed to have this particular obstacle as a challenge on their courses.


has anyone else seen courses or particular obstacles that seemed dangerous,
and if so, would U share them? agility is supposed to be fun, exciting & athletic - or at least aerobic,
if we are not contenders. as a trainer, i love seeing dog-owners do things WITH their dogs - i would be
very disappointed to see agility become a high-risk event.

if people want to watch high-risk, they can watch military jet flight-shows or extreme jumps on motorcycles -
or if people want to participate in high-risk, they can base-jump, skateboard without a helmet,
or tease giant sting-rays while snorkeling. Our dogs have to depend on us to keep them safe - they don't know
what's dangerous & what's just their usual fun agility-course. 'Challenging' should not be a synonym
for high-risk, IMO.

__________________
terry pride, APDT-Aus, apdt#1827, CVA, TDF
*wolves R wolves, dogs R dogs, + primates R us.*
tmp, sept-2007

Sage was hurt - luckily she recovered quickly, and the very next weekend, scored her MACH
[Master Agility Champion] AKC-title. all better, now!

Very nice dog!

The dog walk's height seems inherently dangerous, so I guess being on look out for distractions around it, would be wise. This dog had fallen off and been out for a year from injury YouTube - ‪Agility Nuts - Ruddington 14th/15th May 2011 - That Springer Spaniel With Waggy Tail‬‏. I liked the trained cautious safety first approach. This event was called A-frame gamble, with competitors having choices with bonuses, rather than just a straight fun of a course depending on the capabilities of their dogs.

All the jumps were consistent and differing event formats made it interesting to spectate without any dogs being at risk. I saw a large pointer type, really rocket round another course with very many jumps, out of control of handler, so it failed to score marks, but was not endangered any more than a dog which paused on contact points in a very cautious steady way, apart from that inherent in exciteable dogs rushing too much.

__________________
For eager & reliable recall, be fun for the dog to come back to! Then often send them off right away to do what they wanted!
DT&B - Glossary of acronyms & jargon terms.
Encouraging good behaviours, whilst consistently avoiding practise of bad alternatives leads to extinction of the bad. So if dog sits 6/10 times it doesn't sit 4/10 times, encouraging with the right rewards (positively-reinforcing) enough for 9/10 times means it now fails to sit only 1/10 times, sit 10/10 means...

In the UK there are no such things as wingless jumps in agility apart from a few available for garden training. NEVER in competition. I would think they are dangerous as the dog couldn't always see them properly.

When I was doing my judges course, safety was emphasised and we had to look at courses on paper and see when any dangers might be. Some things we were taught to avoid were bad angles onto contacts, particularly the dog walk or seesaw where the dog could easily go off the side, sharp angles into the soft tunnel where the dog could whack itself against the hard section at the front. The tyre should always be set in a fairly straight line with other obstacles to be safe etc.

The height of the dog walk may look unsafe, but if a dog falls from the top it has time to turn in the air so it lands on its feet. Any lower and they could be landing on their sides which is more likely to lead to injury. These things has been thought about!

That Springer Spaniel required leg surgury having fallen off and that's the reason it was off for a year, despite not landing on back.

Good to know that the "Safety First" impression that I observed, is cultural. I was rather concerned by some of those wingless jumps shown, in the US comp, so glad they're unused in UK.

__________________
For eager & reliable recall, be fun for the dog to come back to! Then often send them off right away to do what they wanted!
DT&B - Glossary of acronyms & jargon terms.
Encouraging good behaviours, whilst consistently avoiding practise of bad alternatives leads to extinction of the bad. So if dog sits 6/10 times it doesn't sit 4/10 times, encouraging with the right rewards (positively-reinforcing) enough for 9/10 times means it now fails to sit only 1/10 times, sit 10/10 means...

I wouldn't have liked the course anyway because of having to rear cross the collapsable tunnel. Unless you ran with the dog on your left, but don't know how well that would turn out

One thing with dogwalks is thinking how windy it is. Show I was at last year had a Belgian Shepherd fall off the middle of the DW purely because of the wind. After that quite a few people either ran the course as NFC or just missed the DW completely.

Several times I've seen the dog walk being taken out of a course because it was too windy - small dogs are most vulnerable. My medium dog was blown off one during an agility fun day on the Cumbrian coast, landed with a bang on the contact area and won her class! I've even seen A-frames blow over, one almost landing on the judge. When something like that happens, contact obstacles are abandoned, classes stopped and sometimes the show closed for the rest of the day.