Entries from December 2007 ↓

I’m back and I would like to take a few minutes of your time to look at the measuring issue from the other side. Well, if you’re a speed-reader it may only take a few minutes. I want to make it clear I am not worried that the dreaded NAFA Board of Directors is going to come after me and as such, I am back peddling from previous posts. I don’t believe Tony Soprano is a board member, at least no yet. Until then, my concern that a member of the board is going to come after me, in the dark of night, to break my kneecaps is pretty minimal.

I just don’t see the BoD getting together ringing their hands, with sinister laughs, and thinking if they could just shut Mike up they could easily implement their evil plan. (I almost wrote twisting their handlebar mustaches but then I thought one or two board members just might go Tony Soprano on my posterior. It’s up to you to decide which members might.) Also, my ego is not so large that I believe that I am having a significant impact on the outcome of this issue, or any others. I know this article is going to sound like I’m a schizophrenic with duel personalities after my previous posts. Who among you can say that I’m not? Really, I’m just struggling with the viable alternatives for a difficult issue.
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So after my rant yesterday, what can we all do to make communication better? I know that the NAFA Board wants to be open to a certain extent; after all, they did create the leadership chat, which very few people participate. What can they do better to keep their participants informed? How can they tell us how they feel about different issues and still maintain their objectivity?

For those that don’t know, all NAFA board meetings are open to the Flyball community. The date, time, and location will be published on the NAFA web site. I encourage everyone that can to attend these meetings if one is held in your area.

Responsibility

I talked about responsibility yesterday and more that anything else it was out of frustration. I want to keep this forum open to discussion for the benefit of everyone in the flyball community and we have people that want to abuse this gift. You can still maintain you anonymity without using a fake email address. I am not a big fan of rules but in this case, I need to put some in place when making comments.

1. You can use any name you would like in the name field as long as you don’t try to impersonate someone else. Use your dogs name if you want I really don’t care.

2. Use your own email address and don’t make something up. If I find that you have entered a false or invalid email address, I will delete your comment(s).

3. This one falls on me. I will make this promise to you that I will not reveal your identity and your email address will remain confidential.

4. Make valid comments. Don’t trash anyone on the blog and keep your comments non-personal and I will do the same. If you see something that is offensive please bring it to my attention and I will either delete the comment or strike the offending words even if I’m the offender.

My Goal

I created this blog to keep everyone better informed of Flyball issues and it is a permanent record for everyone to look back on. Please try not to abuse this gift.

As you may know, I allow other contributors to make post on this blog to allow for a broader perspective of the issues in the Flyball community and also that you hear from someone other than me. I would like to do more in the training, nutrition, and conditioning area so if you know someone or you yourself, that has good knowledge in these areas and would like to make post about these topics please let me know.

Larry

This syndrome is the fear of actually having to answer questions in a public forum. It is sometimes displayed by people not wanting to be accountable, hiding behind someone else’s name, or using a false name when commenting on public forums such as this.

A good example of not wanting to be heard actually answer questions in a public forum is displayed by almost all that sit on the NAFA Board of Directors. God forbid, they might actually say something in public that some people might not agree with; or they might slip up and we in the flyball community might actually find out how they feel about an issue. After all, they wouldn’t want everyone to know what they are thinking.

The only time that you will find anything about what any of board members are thinking is to find some obscure line in board meeting minutes or buried in some chat transcript. I am glad to see that they are announcing on the NAFA web site the date and place of the next board meeting. I hope that people will actually attend but I doubt it. The apathy in the flyball community is staggering.

Apathy

You would think more people would be willing to stand up and actually say something. You can see by the 2007 NAFA Organization Update below that many people are participating in NAFA events. So why is there such a lack of concern in the flyball community when rule changes are being discussed, as on this blog? Of the 39 comments on my post Subtracting 5 Instead of 4, only 10 people carried out the discussion, and 1 of the 10 used a false name and email address; or, how about the lack of returned ballots when a delegate vote is called? I know this is just a dog sport but I’m sure that of 5,697 dogs that participated in NAFA flyball events last year there are many people out there that care about this sport. There is no excuse for just 56.81% of the ballots returned from a vote. We are not talking about individual people here we are talking about clubs, 358 clubs participated in NAFA tournaments. There should be 100% participation. If the clubs owners don’t care, they should pass the ballots out to the people that do.

2007 NAFA Organization Update

• During the 2007 racing year, NAFA had 342 tourneys hosted by 137 host Clubs and entered by 8360 teams from 358 Clubs
• 5697 different dogs participated in NAFA flyball events representing 146 breeds and earning a total of 14,096,020 points toward NAFA titles
• 3321 dogs earned 6079 titles during the racing year
• NAFA Flyball was played in 37 different states and provinces including the first tournament in Wyoming
• 16 Clubs hosted their first NAFA flyball tournament during the 2007 racing year
• Veterans was successful once again in its 2nd year during 2007 with 731 dogs running on 415 teams in 146 different events

Here’s an excellent example of apathy from people you wouldn’t expect:

Back before the candidate voting took place, one of the candidates sent out an email on August 2, 2007 to all of the NAFA Judges, wanting inputs from them. Here is a snippet…

… I would like to be better informed from all parties regarding what you experience over the years and what direction you would like to see NAFA move towards in the future. This would be helpful leading into the candidate web chats and leadership chats.

Each one of you, being a Judge for NAFA flyball carries a great responsibility of our sport. Without you, we would not have flyball. Your dedication to this sport is vital, no question about that. So, I’m writing to all the judges to get your individual insight about NAFA flyball….

The letter ended as such…

I understand that since I’m not a NAFA BoD member there might be some reservation. I promise that each one of your individual responses/discussions will be keep private, just between you and myself, as I value your trust and respect.

This seems like a reasonable request to me. Can you guess how many judges replied? Of all the judges, only 3 responded. How is that for apathy?

Responsibility

No one wants to take responsibility so he or she will use someone’s email accounts or make something up. They want to take cheap shots but don’t want to use their real name doing it. After all, what would their teammates think? It goes right back to the Flyball Paparazzi Syndrome. Stay anonymous at all cost because you wouldn’t want anyone to know how you actually feel about an issue. God forbid that someone might find out that you would like to try a U-FLI tournament or you might prefer one organization to the other. What would people think?

Larry

I hate conspiracy theories, I really do. I have found in my life experience that the simplest answer is usually the right answer. Oswald likely did act alone, if he didn’t what do I care they didn’t shoot at me. AIDS was not a CIA plot, some idiot likely got his freak on with a monkey all on his own. Area 51 doesn’t have a flying saucer hidden from us, when has the government ever been able to keep a secret for fifty days let alone fifty years. I truly hate conspiracy theories. I’m not saying outright that there was a master mind conspiracy to keep the flyball community confused, but I may be implying it, a little. The most important question that I have, next to “WHY”, what I would like the NAFA board to answer is, was the most popular request they received in the last year to change the subtraction from 4″ to 5″ for jump heights or was there another issue requested more often??

I don’t travel all over the country playing flyball. But I do play in a lot of tournaments from North Carolina to New Hampshire. And I never heard anyone say “All I want for Christmas is to have 5″ subtracted from the withers of the smallest dog running in the heat to set the jump heights”. Now I’ll admit I’m not the most approachable person in the world. I can put out a pretty strong “don’t talk to me” vide. As a general rule the more people I meet the more I like my dog. My nickname in the flyball club begins with an “A” and ends with a hole. But I would think that if this was such a hot button issue I would have at least overheard a passing comment. However, I have no scientific data to backup this hypothesis.

I think there is a problem in NAFA rules. If you review the Judges training program there is a startling disparity. During a two day tournament there are 18 to 20 hours of flyball activity taking place. The measurement process is typically given 1 hour to be accomplished. Therefore, as a factor of time, 5% of the judge’s time is spent measuring dogs. However, the judges training program has a significant amount of time training prospective judges on the art of measuring. Admittedly measuring can make or break a teams weekend so ensuring prospect judges are proficient in this task is extremely important. But changing the number subtracted from the dog’s withers likely isn’t going to make the problems related to the measuring method any better.

For example, let’s say that the sweet spot in flyball is a 10″ jump. This is just to illustrate a point, if you believe there is a better number plug in your number of choice. I like 10 because it is an easy number to work with. So at 10″ I am getting the balance of jump height to speed I want for my team. Therefore, the perfect dog I am looking for under the current rules is fourteen and three-quarters to fourteen and seven-eights inches at the withers. So I go out and find a breeder that guaranteed me a pup that will grow up to be between fourteen and three quarters and fourteen and seven eights inches tall and run a 3.7 seconds. But you know those breeders, they lie all the time and the dog grows up to be fourteen and sixty-three sixty-fourths inches tall. I know this for a fact because I took my dog to Los Alamos labs and had it measured by laser. The dog is exactly fourteen and sixty-three sixty-fourths inches tall. Now I take my nearly perfect one year old dog to his first flyball tournament. And the NAFA approved judge measures my nearly perfect dog the first time and tells me the dog is 15 inches jumping 11 inches. I ask what the dog exactly measured and the judge tells me fifteen and a quarter. I’m horrified I assume as it is the dogs first tournament that he was nervous and standing on his toes which caused the measurement inaccuracy. So I walk the dog around trying to get it to relax so he will not stand on his toes. I stand in line to get my dog re-measured and when it is our turn my dog, with a perfect stand stay by the way, is measured by the judge at fifteen and one eighth inches tall. Now obviously this judge is an idiot, he is just jealous of my perfect dog and is out to get me. Then I realize that the dog hasn’t done his morning business and I know I always feel shorter after taking care of the morning business. While taking the dog to the walking area, plastic bag in hand, it hits me like a ton of bricks, it’s the fur! So I run to my truck grab my trusty clippers and shave a five inch by five inch patch of fur right over the withers and go back to stand in the measuring line. The idiot jealous judge who’s brother-in-law is on one of my competitors re-measures my dog. He looks up shaking his head and says “I’m sorry just over fifteen inches the dog has to jump 11″ jumps”. IDIOT!!

My point is does the story change if the dog is fifteen and sixty-three sixty-fourths inches tall and we subtract five inches from the withers measurement. No, the owner of this dog isn’t going to happily walk away with the 11″ jump height. The root of the problem still exists.

I hate conspiracy theories but are we allowing ourselves to be distracted from the large white elephant in the room?

Mike

I am not a very social person so I don’t like parties or going out on the town partying until all hours. Therefore, a flyball weekend is my only social escape away from the grind of everyday life. Yet, being without a team right now, I’m going to take some time off, regroup, and reevaluate my options. The hardest thing is keeping my self and the dogs in shape.

My wife and I went out yesterday, set up a flyball lane in our yard, and gave the dogs and us a good workout. Man we are all out of shape. After a few minutes of running my very young high drive Border collie, I was on the ground wheezing after he hit the tug and me so hard it knocked me off my feet. As I was trying to get to my feet I was thinking man I love this game. I really do and it only takes a few minutes of playing that you see your dogs never lose their enthusiasm for the game.

Here are 6 things I’ll miss the most while trying to regroup:

1. Hangout with people that like the same thing. I guess the best thing about flyball is that you get to hangout with people and dogs that love the same thing. You can leave all of the politics behind and just focus on playing with your dog. Good starts and close passing are fun to watch and talk about.

2. You get to eat junk food. Diets go out the window on a flyball weekend. Everywhere you look; there is junk food, donuts, pastries, and candy of every variety. For overweight people trying to lose a few pounds you can forget about it on a flyball weekend. The realization doesn’t hit you until Sunday night while driving home. Man I ate too much.

3. Body aches and pains. You can’t walk for three days after a tournament but you look back and think, man we had a good time. Bloody fingers, hurt knees, back pain are all good reminders of how much fun you had.

4. You might win some cheap stuff in the raffle. I don’t play the raffle that much but my wife loves it. She’s had her fair share of wins. Most of the time we very rarely find a use for any of the stuff that was won but it’s for a good cause, and that is to help the team put on more tournaments.

5. You’re not at work. I know some people that actually bring their work with them to the tournament. What fun is that? When I’m at a tournament, work is the furthest from my mind. I don’t even want to think about it, which is one good reason for playing flyball in the first place.

6. The dogs love the game. Winning or losing the dogs love the game and you get to spend quality time with your canine friends. I have the most fun just watching the dogs run, fast or slow, they are fun to watch.

Happy Racing,

Larry