Announced on the NAFA Website:
October 6th, 2011 – Multibreed point proposal for a binding delegate vote
Introduction: In an effort to revitalize the Multibreed class, the Board is presenting a proposal for consideration by the delegates that would increase the NAFA title points earned in the Multibreed class. If adopted, the following change would become effective October 1, 2012.
Question for delegate vote: Should NAFA amend the point-count rules for the multibreed class so that each dog on a team that runs with a recorded time less than 24 seconds earns 30 points; from 24 to 27.999 seconds earns 7 points; and from 28 to 31.999 seconds earns 2 points?
Pros: This increase is designed to recognize and reward the comparative difficulty of assembling a multibreed team where every dog running is of a different breed, counting a mix as a single breed. Of all the classes, multibreed perhaps does the most to stimulate interest in flyball because people who have dogs at home can identify with the variety of breeds running and visualize doing so with their own dog.
Cons: This proposal cheapens the points earned by dogs who run with clubs not able to field multibreed teams and makes titles too easy to get. There should be one point system for all.
This is news and the first opportunity for the flyball public to discuss it.
My opinion is that it would have been nice to have some kind of “heads up” before the NAFA Board finalized the wording of the proposal. In the past, the NAFA Board has been presented with proposals to reform the title point system for ALL classes because the times posted by teams today do not even come close to the average times that were posted when the title point system was first adopted by NAFA in the year 1987. Back then, relatively few teams posted under 24 seconds and so it was quite an achievement to do so. Since then, there have several technical developments that totally revolutionized flyball racing. Some of these developments include the EJS (lights), internalized catapult system of box design and the swimmer’s turn. The Board has always rejected proposals that would change the title point system, even proposals that requested the delegates be given the opportunity to vote on them.
So, would it make more sense to reform and rethink the entire title point system FIRST and then look at the Multi-breed class and see if we want to increase points earned in that class?
What other questions and issues or concerns should we be looking at?
…..Chris
19 comments ↓
In short, I think no. It is easy enough to gain titles with the current point systems in place, and a change in multibreed, which only exists in certain regions and which not all clubs can participate in, seems to be an unbalanced and unfair way to reevaluate the point system. Maybe they should take a look at the rest of the point system as well, and put that 30 point run in all classes for an under 20 second run, or similar.
And, regions without multibreed still run a huge variety of dog breeds. We promote the sport as much as any other regions, and people have a chance to see a great variety of dogs participating.
Multibreed competition does not exist where I race, in Region 7 – in fact if you look at the Multibreed seeding list, there isn’t a single club from Region 7 listed. While MB is an interesting class of racing, the fact that it is considered separate from Regular racing and thus the same dog can run in both classes on the same day very much bothers me as it is not healthy for the dog, yet that is quite common in other regions and is why some dogs post over 15k points per year. I don’t see adding even more NAFA points to MB competition as a bonus, unless MB and Regular are considered exclusionary to each other, as Veterans is to other classes. I realize Open is still an option for people who want to double-run their dogs, but at least in my region that usually only happens to provide a backup for a green dog on that team. Finally, MB appears to be inclusive but is really exclusionary – my club has a plethora of border collies, but only one could be on a MB team. Why should the other eight BCs be excluded from earning extra points? I’ve also seen arguments in the past designed to make a “new” breed for Multibreed competition, such as the McNab strain of border collies being listed as a separate breed – that doesn’t seem in the original spirit of MB, and making MB worth more points would exacerbate the problem. I just don’t see how adding points to MB times is going to solve any problem, and in fact I see several problems that it would cause instead.
Our team runs multi and regular. Multi breed is already exclusive by nature giving them more points will just make it more so. I think this is a bad idea. I really don’t think it would be fair to give them more points just because they are running multi. If you look for dogs to compete in multi you will eventually get the dogs. If you don’t then you won’t. I think this would be unfair to the other dogs, border collies, staffies, mixes ect… These dogs love flyball and giving them less points will de-value their accomplishments. I think the way it is (equal points for equal times/runs) is fair. Last time I checked we didn’t give different countries or races extra points because they weren’t good at a particular sport in the Olympics.
We used to have multibreed in our region – our club always offered that division – we ran it one tournament over two days with a reduced fee to enter just to get some clubs to participate (3 races per day). Now with the change in fees charged by NAFA that is no longer feasible. We have to raise the fees and no one wants to pay them. We tried to talk to NAFA about it but got no help from them. So sadly we will be dropping multi division this year and I doubt any other tournaments in our region will offer it. I doubt a 5/2/1 point increase will help – reduce the NAFA fees might help more.
The only good thing here is NAFA announcing it in advance and the effective date (if passed by the delegate voters) is a year away (Oct. 2012).
To me, the proposal clarifys and makes several things all come together now.
Over the past few years and more so recently I have witnessed an extreme push and bias for recruiting specific breeds in some clubs, some clubs promoting they have the #1, #10 or #-whatever dog in flyball, a big push in some clubs to get their member’s dogs ILPs (or PALs) in order to change their dog from a mix to a breed for the express purpose of running multi, the breed challenge process that was just adopted, the association with and sponsorship from AKC pet partners, and the BoD’s previous statement (related to the breed challenge process) they believe purebreds are at a ‘disadvantage’ performance-wise in flyball.
Separating the (racing) classes, making exclusions and proposing more points for certain dogs; there is still more going on here than meets the eye.
v/r,
Linda
One of the things mentioned in the ‘pros’ is ‘multibreed perhaps does the most to stimulate interest in flyball because people who have dogs at home can identify with the variety of breeds running and visualize doing so with their own dog.’
I think it would have the opposite effect. If someone wants to learn to play flyball and they try to join a club that already has one of that breed it would put the club in a situation where they would turn away someone because they don’t have the ‘right’ breed.
It could also cause conflict within clubs. Everyone would want to run on the Multibreed team because they get more points. And anyone who isn’t allowed to run on Multibreed would end up with hurt feelings.
I run with a small club, we have 7 handlers. We currently run 3 teams and run in open, regular and multibreed. We balance our teams so that it’s fair for ALL of the dogs and they ALL have a chance to earn titles. Two of our teams could run Multibreed. This change would force us to decide which team ‘deserves’ to get more points, since we don’t have enough handlers to run against ourselves. And the NAFA rules would force one of our teams to forfeit.
This type of change would only serve to tear clubs apart, push people away, and give flyball a bad name.
1. The racing classes have been separate as long as I’ve been playing (2002). I don’t know when Multibreed was added as a separate class but it’s been quite a while now.
2. AKC Canine Partners (not Pet Partners) opened AKC events to mixed breeds. NAFA has always been open to mixed breeds. What’s your point?
3. They are not proposing more points for certain dogs, they are proposing more points for certain teams (a proposal I am not in favor of, by the way). Big difference.
What exactly do you think is going on?
Wow… my club already gets enough grief putting together teams. A versus B team, “fast” versus “green”, “for fun” versus “Division 1″, which dogs can double-run, and all the other contentious decisions involved in dividing up your collection of dogs and handlers into race teams while trying to accommodate personal goals. We’ve had team members quit over this stuff.
Now we can add an extra five points per heat to squabble over.
Lovely.
I agree with Louie above. Took the thoughts right out of my head.
There are several discussions going on around the country on various flyball lists concerning this issue. At some point, I will summarize some of the arguments on both sides that I am reading about.
In the meantime, I have a question in my mind inspired by a few of the ideas that are being brainstormed.
The Open Class is the main reason that Multi-breed has had such a rapid and dramatic decline. What if we adopted the following proposals instead?
1.) Any dog listed on a timesheet for the Open Class may NOT be listed on any other timesheet for this event. (Meaning, NOT on Regular, Multi-breed or any non-Regular class). NO exceptions.
2.) At least ONE dog from a foreign club must be included in the 4 dog line up to run a legal heat in the Open Class.
Just kicking around some ideas, folks.
Chris
I like the idea of brainstorming…with flyballers around the country. That is what needs to be and should have been done before tossing a proposal into the ring in such a formal fashion as announcing an upcoming call for binding delegate vote.
But, that is not what happened here and that is (only) part of the reason I have my concerns and hypothesis that something beyond what meets the eye is going on.
Why is multibreed not a hot entry in tournaments?
A previous commenter to this post mentioned a lower cost of entry might help Multi. Another commenter mentioned coordinating a small club with limited handlers and trying to make up as many lineups as possible is somewhat cumbersome yet they manage to enter Multi. A few commenters said their Region doesn’t run Multi at all.
Is the decline only due to the Open class taking away entries?
If it is due strictly to Open racing, it is possible the majority of NAFA flyballers want it that way. It is possible that the majority don’t really like Multi or they make a conscious choice not to run Multi in their Region. It has been mentioned before that NAFA flyball is what we make it.
Does the BoD know the reasons for the decline? Based on how this proposal is being handled, I don’t think they do. It appears to me they are trying to push something onto the participants against what the majority want. I could be wrong.
v/r,
Linda
I think your proposal goes in the wrong direction. The LAST thing anyone should be doing is making it more difficult for clubs to enter teams. The ultimate goal is to grow the sport, not to litter it with speed bumps.
The breed challenge rules just made it somewhat more difficult for clubs to form Multi teams (how much more difficult, we won’t know until a few years of statistics accumulate). Now you’re proposing to make it harder for clubs to form Open teams.
What I’m not seeing are things to make it EASIER for clubs to enter Multi teams. The points change proposal, distasteful as I find it, at least approaches it from an incentive angle rather than piling on restrictions.
Just to kick around some more ideas, you could largely eliminate the “advantage” of Open over Multi by allowing pick-up Multi teams. How about allowing two mixes to run on a Multi team if one of the mixes is a height dog? Maybe change the draw rules to give some sort of preference to Multi in a limited tournament?
Louie, comment #6. You hit the nail on the head. For people who have Clubs with ‘point-whores’ on them, this is a disasterous proposal! I can’t even imagine the melee that would ensue… I can hear the arguments now about who should and shouldn’t get preferential treatment and the plethora of reasons why. *Sigh* I can almost see the evil glares and hear the scathing remarks should someone bad pass and cost the team those precious extra points, oh the horror! lol
It’s just a bad idea IMO. There has to be another way to promote Multi if that’s NAFA’s goal. I could field 2 Multi teams per event, but I choose not to primarily because you don’t know until an event closes if there are going to be enough teams in Multi to keep us from racing ourselves even if my 2 teams are seeded 3 seconds apart. The other issue is I’ve entered 20 second Multi teams before and been put into Multi 1 against teams that can run 16 seconds! *Yes, this happened even PRIOR to the creation of the Open division. I’m sorry, but racing against a team that can beat you running 5 dogs (4 plus a re-run) against your 4 dogs just isn’t fun. I know the sport isn’t always about ‘winning’ but getting your tail handed to you in a division you clearly have no place racing in just plain stinks.
Could NAFA maybe consider changing the rules about how many teams need to be in each division in order to race? I’ve been to events where divisions only had 3 teams based upon an especially wide spread in seed times. They may have raced against a lower division during the weekend to even out the number of races, but their placements were determined based upon the 3-teams in their division only and the races they had against their own division were competitive. I can’t be the only one that thinks a 3-4 second spread (heck, even a 2+ second spread) within a division makes for less fun racing.
I don’t necessarily agree that Multi stimulates the most interest in the sport either. There are still just as many breeds out there as there were prior to the creation of the Open division. And for newbies coming to check out the sport, well they are generally so overwhelmed by the sheer craziness of it that they have no idea whether a team is running 4 breeds vs. 2 or 3. It’s the responsibility of the individual Clubs within the sport to spread the word that flyball isn’t an ‘exclusive sport’ reserved for just the fastest dogs! The reality is most people hear about the sport and contact a local club to see what it’s all about. If the Clubs aren’t telling people that any breed/speed of dog can play, then shame on them.
Chris – I agree that Open should be in fact Open and include dogs from more than 1 team, but what if the ‘open’ dog were to get ill or injured and the backup dog was from the ‘home’ team? Would that team them be DQ’ed from the event? I think your idea has some merit… but would need to be explored a little more to work out the kinks to cover all the ‘what ifs’.
I think that it is only “More Difficult” to enter a multi breed team if you do not have the four different breeds. In which case awarding the dogs more point doesn’t address the problem.
The question is how to stimulate interest within those clubs that do have the capability to enter a multi breed team but choose not to. Or, stimulate interest within clubs to want to develop the cability to enter multi breed teams if they do not currently have it?
One point to consider is that to the dogs running, nothing changes between regular or multi breed so it really isn’t more difficult to them. I would question whether awarding more points is a worthy incentive?
Just as an idea so feel free to rip it to shreds;
Why not revamp the Regional Points system to award more points to Multi Breed Entries? For Example:
All multi breed entries would be awarded 1 Regional Point for entering a Multi Breed Team. (Call it a Bonus Point) This would be applied to all Multi Teams not just Division 1 and not limited to 1 per club so if a club entered 2 Multi Teams they would recieve 2 points. All teams would probably need to finish a certain number of heats whether by percentage or overall number, I don’t think they should be given away for the entry fee alone.
Instead of the current 3-2-1 system in Div 1 only, change that to 5-4-3-2 and award 1 point to the top finisher in Div 2 if there is one.
I went back through 1 season in a region and it did impact the order of the top 3 teams, ( actually only the top 2 changed) but there was also more definition to the 4 through 8 and if you follow the cumulative totals alot of places changed throughout the season which may or may not have made it interesting for those participating.
I feel that this would create a “Stake” for the shareholders and provide an incentive to “Commit” to the program since selectively entering or not entering could drop you in the standings.
The top teams will still finish at the top but the overall winner may not be clearly decided until the very end and entering more teams does provide a return of sorts on the investment as well improve the quality of the competition itself.
Like I said, just an idea. I have to believe that NAFA is trying to address a problem. But I’m not sure they have clearly defined it yet.
At the end of the day I do this because I enjoy the game and I am competitive by nature. ( I have plenty of squeeky toys now, thanks just the same) A more inclusive point system may go a long way towards stabilizing and even growing the Multi Breed Division.
How exactly is Multibreed supposed to showcase that any dog can compete in flyball? What it really seems to be doing is showcasing purebred dogs in flyball, since every mix, no matter what mix it is, counts as the same breed, and hence, is very underrepresented in the Multibreed class compared to Regular or Open.
Yet there are still more Border Collies registered than Mixed Breeds. Wouldn’t all or most breeds be underrepresented in Multi since each team can run only one of each? This depends on your own perspective.
If you were to go by the number of dogs registered per breed. Border Collies and Mixed Breeds would have the highest representation, depending on ones perspective of course.
The proposal states that this is an “Effort to Revitalize the Multi Breed Class”. I don’t think this proposal does that. Whether the average person seeing flyball for the first time would even notice the difference in the dogs without having it pointed out is anybody’s guess.
That being said: Generating interest in Flyball does not necessarily change an existing clubs commitment to enter a Multi Breed team. They either do or they don’t, more points for the dogs could to an extent but in the interest of fairness to all participants, may not be the best way to do it.
I too like the brainstorming and wish the NAFA BoD had developed a poll or request idea’s be sent in that they wanted input on “how” to revitalize Multi-Breed. As it is once a delegate vote takes place, if the proposed change does not pass it cannot come up again before the delegates for 3 years. This is a knee-jerk reaction that should have incorporated a little more thought. We have nearly 11 months before implementation of any rule change.
…and I do favor a revamping of our point system after all it has been in place unchanged for 24 years. Back then less then 1 percent of the teams running ran under 24 seconds. Think of all the changes to our sport since then yet NAFA stands firm on the existing point system.
JMO
Seems to me the best way to encourage more multi class competitions is to reduce the NAFA recording fees and thereby the entry fees for teams in that class. This point idea does not really make much sense. As to the assertion that Open is killing multi, I can’t say that is true in our region. We seem to always have 1 multi division that is hotly contested by teams outclassed in regular by 3 to 4 seconds. Multi gives everyone else a chance at a regional championship in our region. It may even cause in increase in multi entries in our area. If anything, Open has diminished the number of regular and especially veterans classes in our region. It’s been a year since we’ve had a vets class with more than 1 team entered. The Vets classes usually get dropped due to lack of interest. At least in my neck of the woods, that is where Open has taken it’s toll. Of course, it could just be that enough of those older dogs are retired, or they are still running strong enough to not “require” vets. Since Vets is really only of benefit to the larger dogs–the really small height dogs still have to run jump height– and they can get by with open that is what seems to be happening.
I guess in other regions Multi may be dying off, but I don’t really see how the points change addresses that.
I see Multi Breed class having diminished interest due to two factors: Open class and smaller clubs.
Multi-breed is suffering because the Open class of competition was instituted as a separate class specifically because leaders wanted to make sure it would not be the same as that other organization. These leaders cut off their nose to spite their face, and Multi Breed has taken the fall.
Large clubs used to make more of an effort to run Multi Breed class in order to not run against themselves in Regular class. Since the advent of Open class, I see large clubs submitting entries as though Open was just exactly like Regular, without the “run against themselves” penalty.
Still, and more importantly, Open class is not the only reason Multi Breed is losing entries. Multi-breed is not suffering because dogs do not make enough points. The Multi Breed class is exclusory by definition. Smaller clubs have a harder time fielding Multi Breed teams. Diminished interest should be taken to mean fewer folks are interested. Not an oppportunity to further exacerbate the inequality.
As to adding exclusions to Open class of competition. I am opposed. Whether a large club enters a team in Open instead of Multi is on them. Exclusions would hurt the small clubs. For example, there are large clubs that routinely enter two or more Open teams but will seldom if ever actually, you know, run “Open”. Meanwhile, small clubs are leaving the odd dog out for lack of a team to run on.
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