Entries from December 2007 ↓

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

Announcements from NAFA Board of Directors Meeting
November 30, 2007 – Omaha, NE

A proposal exists to change NAFA Rule 8.2a to provide that jump heights will be set by subtracting five instead of four inches from the height at the withers of the shortest dog running, to a minimum jump height of seven inches.

The Board of Directors is calling for a delegate vote on this topic. The proposed issue is being published to the delegates for a three month comment period, after which a vote will be called. For the motion to pass, it must be supported by 2/3 of the delegates voting.

This is sure to be a hot button issue over the next few months. This is my first post on this issue and there are already comments about this on the blog. Here is what Mike says…

… My concern is that the outcome for this rule change is going to be determined on supposition and emotions without substantiated reasons for either alternative. If there is any hard data that indicates that the jump heights is causing or contributing to health problems for our dogs, then I’m on board the rule should be changed. However, if the rule change is being proposed because some clubs can’t find, train, or just don’t want to deal with a height dog, the rule should not be changed….

You can read his full comment here.

Jackie points out that NAFA may be trying to fix the wrong problem…

My problem now with this new proposal is it is a Band-Aid for the problem they don’t want to deal with – developing or creating a new way to measure altogether. Measuring inaccuracies have been an issue since teams started getting faster and faster, and using heights dogs bred for the sport. I can’t believe that this has never been the top priority….

You can read her full comment here.

My Opinion

I agree with both comments. In my post Jump Heights, I think when NAFA lower their jump heights to the current settings (minimum of 7 inches and the maximum of 14 inches) they got it right. So, I agree with Mike that changing the formula by subtracting 5 inches instead of 4 inches would be a mistake. This is just a knee jerk reaction to the wrong problem, which leads me to Jackie’s comment, the “M” word.

I am sure that everyone is well aware of my problem with measuring inaccuracies and if you are not, you need to reread my post titled, Measuring. The U-FLI measuring system may not be the answer for NAFA but the bone measuring system is fast and much more precise than the wicket. Maybe a combination of the two systems could be employed by NAFA. Height dogs could be measured using a system similar to U-FLI, i.e. measure the leg bone up to x number of inches, and all the other dogs using the wicket. Aren’t we all mostly concerned with the height dog anyway? Using a wicket on a short-legged large chested dog, like a Corgi or Dachshund, is not fair for obvious reasons.

I am sure everyone has their own thoughts on this issue and I would like to hear them.

Larry

I hate to keep beating on this issue but I have gotten several private comments concerning online voting. I encourage the people that experienced problems to submit their concerns to NAFA.

Executive Director

I realize that the Executive Director was running unopposed, but several people told me that they wanted to exercise their right to vote No. However, when voting online and selecting No for the Executive Director their votes were changed to Yes. Apparently, the Executive Director isn’t as popular as everyone thinks but I guess we will never know. That’s probably why the Executive Director’s votes were not shown in the voting results.

Clear Directions

If you read my Voting Analysis post, you know that I made several conclusions about why some clubs didn’t vote or maybe only voted for 1 or 2 candidates. The concern is whether the delegates knew that they could vote for 3 candidates. Was the instruction clear or did the voters decide not to vote for 3 candidates, or was there a probably with the online form? If the hard copy ballots that were returned showed an equal percentage of votes not cast it could be assumed that, the voter was exercising their right not to vote.

Maybe the online form needs to be modified so the voter must choose Yes or No for each candidate before the form can be submitted. It would make it easier after the voting to determine whether the voter was just exercising their right to not vote.

Things Good To Know

1. Clubs that did not vote – I know it’s probably unlikely that a club out there would fess up and actually say that they didn’t vote, but I would like to know why they didn’t vote. Not to berate them but just to find out why, did they receive the ballot(s), did they forget, etc. I’m sure that NAFA would like to know also.

2. Clubs that did vote – Of the clubs that did vote were the online instructions clear; did they encounter problems with the online form; did the hard copy ballot have clear instructions.

3. NAFA Questions – Things that would be good to know from NAFA are how many ballots showed up late and were not counted, of the ballots received, were there some that were not counted, and if ballots were not counted what was the reason for not counting them.

4. How can voting be improved – What suggestions can you make to improve the voting process?

Most likely, we will never know the answers to these questions but until we do the problems will not be corrected any time soon.

Larry