I cannot believe the arguments on the agility forum about this. Two immovable objects banging heads like stags at rutting season. It is annoying because it obscures the debate. And a "global moderator" involved too, taking sides. Not right surely. However since the forum is only lightly moderated I suppose it is tolerable.
What do I think? Well, Willow would have benefited because although she was always very fit something about repeatedly jumping large was making her unhappy. She could jump much bigger things if they got in the way of her walkies, and smaller heights repeatedly. So the question is does that mean that competitions should be changed to accommodate her or that I needed to get a different dog? Lots of collies her size could jump large just fine, but we have many other breeds in agility. Even if springers were accommodated, there would be other breeds that were not (very little dogs for example). Is the sport meant to be totally inclusive or a showcase for well suited breeds?
Leaving aside the rights and wrongs and technicalities, what about the decision making process? I've never been to a KC meeting, and turning up just to argue the corner of one issue seems a bit disingenuous. However I have been involved with some of the forum discussions. The KC process has come out against the 4th height proposals and with some rather strange reasons. Reading between the lines my impression is that people can't be bothered because it's better than it was and there must be some cut off point for fitness (for agility) in dogs. The voters almost certainly do not represent the wider agility population. The "nasty" forum is just not a nice place to discuss this as both sides have people who fail to remember that the forum is populated by people and not hypothetical devils advocates, and some people cannot stop themselves being hurtful. I am not getting involved this time, although I do feel I could contribute. The "nice" forum is much nicer about it but still there is no consensus. I would be genuinely interested in an investigation about what people think on this issue (all attempts on the forum have been invalidate by arguments about the methodology). So all you vet and animal related students an interesting dissertation for you.
So what can be done? Well I have to admit I am waiting for the independents to develop. I hear that they had a big fight to gain acceptance in the early days because people who entered them were banned from entering KC events. Karma demands that the KC should be forced into second place for this :) Personally I will probably keep on with the KC shows, they have the biggest entries and are therefore the most meaningful in terms of competition. However I would switch if this changed. I will probably do some of the larger independents this year just for the experience, and who knows I might switch. I don't currently have any small larges competing, if I did I would switch straight away.
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I think the KC are going the right way to drive everyone away from their shows. We simply don't know where to turn for judges in 2012 as they nearly all have family members competing at our shows. From January 2012 the judging of family members and members of the judge's household is forbidden. So what do we do? If we can't find judges there won't be any KC shows and we'll be forced to go down the independent route. The 4th height will be irrelevant if all the clubs follow suit. Well done KC!
Well the discussion items are now closed on agility net forum. I would say this is because one particularly vocal person in support of the 4th height has failed to discuss it in a reasonable manner. Having said that the "other side" were also a bit unfair and it was closed by a moderator that seems to take the no side. Any way that's it now no further discussion allowed. A pity because I do not think people have been listened to in this.
Good post Rob
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