First off, this post has nothing to do with the 4” vs. 5” subtraction, for it was based on the comments from the Large Chest Penalty post.

You say that:

“Measuring” has nothing to do with the “fairness….”
I don’t understand this reasoning for “Measuring” has everything to do with fairness. The mere fact that almost no one measures in NAFA is in itself unfair. I think there is no need for me to explain this. Just read the comments on this blog on any of the posts about measuring.

Then you ask…

“…how does the Electronic Measuring System make things more fair for this dog than the wicket?”

With an Electronic Measuring System, you can get various number of measuring points, i.e. bottom of the chest to ground, top of head to ground, top of withers to ground, length of body, etc. Using other measuring devices such as Tactilus® Real-Time Surface Pressure Mapping Technology (http://sensorprod.com) studies can be conducted on many breeds and body types when jumping over various jump heights to determine the optimal jump height for each body type. This information would then be used to create an algorithm in the Electronic Measuring System to determine the best jump height for each dog.

The “declare your jump height” method just seems to me as giving up on measuring. I could be wrong but I think this will never fly (pardon the pun) with the NAFA flyball community.

If we could get the right heads together using the technology that I’ve described above an Electronic Measuring System could be the fairest way to put this topic to bed forever. It would take almost all of the human factor out of the equation.

As a new face at the wicket alost every owner of a height dog declared “well he’s usually an inch lower”, but having raced in the region for some time now I’m well aware at where the dogs usually measure. Watching some folks go from region to region trying to find a soft supervising judge so they can get the height card they want.

I think declaring height is no solution, the 10sec height dog would disapear in a lot of clubs. At this point I think the best solution is a combination of methods with a computer program to spit out the answer. Measuring both leg length and height at withers would not be that time consuming and would be much less exspensive than a sensor system, and much less likely to have any technical difficulties.

How does measuring trigger a completely unexpected, bizarre situation or paradigm? If you figure this one out let me know.”

Let’s go back to the original question which you asked. “..a dog with a large chest and short legs that drives home my point on how the wicket penalizes such dogs. …Even if NAFA adapted the 5-inch vs. 4-inch calculation, the dog would still jump 11-inch jumps. For all of the wicket advocates out there, tell me how this is fair.”

You did a head fake towards the wicket which leads all discussion down the “measuring hole”. BUT, what I didn’t see and what the question is really about is the 4″ vs 5″ subtraction. “Measuring” has nothing to do with the “fairness” of 4″ vs 5″. Later in the discussion you say:

“The subject of an Electronic Measuring System was brought up, which really does sound like the best solution for measuring. ”

Let’s assume this is already adopted, out there in the field and being used. Tell me, how does the Electronic Measuring System make things more fair for this dog than the wicket? You still have to subtract 4″ or 5″. Even if 6″ were adopted, it is an arbitrary figure.

One other question that is not asked is, “Does the team want to use this dog as their height dog? Or, is this the “challenge” the team strategizes around to put a smaller dog in to lower the jumps? Do we want to take away that challenge?”

Declare your jump height.

“This seems like a radical departure to me. It’s like, we can’t figure out what method, both are unfair, so let’s not measure at all.”

It IS a radical departure. In a perfect world, even if we adopt the “leg bone” measurement, a whole new set of problems enter to plague us. Adding measuring other body parts to the formula will only complicate things further. In order to adopt any system, people have to agree. The more elements you add, the more points of contention you create.

All other things being ‘equal’, if we measure the legbone as the same length and come up with 9″ jump height for any dog with that leg bone, will a 9″ jumping Dachshund have the same advantage as a 9″ jumping BC?

Keep it simple. Flatten the playing field for everybody. “Competitor’s Choice” jump heights doesn’t mean everybody would choose to jump minimum. You’ve said it yourself elsewhere on this blog that 10″ jumps seem to be optimum.

chrisandblast@hotmail.com

Hurdle height is not the only factor that limits speed, so why do we place so much emphasis on measuring one dog when it is the performance of a whole team we measure by racing them?

“Declare Your Jump Height” is my proposal to flatten the playing field for everybody based on declaring your jump height. It does away with measuring completely since it does away with determining jump heights based on one dog’s height.

Divisions are still based on seed times. Teams closely seeded in times play in the same Division.

Will it do away with “height dogs”? In a word, yes. BUT, little dogs will still be needed because of their intelligence, speed and trainability.

Advantages: No more incendiary arguments over measuring. There is no measuring.

Very few teams would run any faster than they do now. Instead of one dog (the HD) being required to run in every heat, all 6 dogs could be rotated. This could help small clubs tremendously.

An electronic method of measuring will not quiet those who have witnessed dogs being measured by as much as maybe a two inch difference. It is unlikely that measuring a leg bone will quiet many others. Subtracting 4″ below the shoulder was an arbitrary decision made at time when it made sense based on the dogs running at the time. 5″ is just as arbitrary and does nothing to fix measuring. We could turn ourselves inside out “looking” for the answer to measuring but, the debate (rabbit hole) will continue to rear its ugly head as long as we hold onto the “idea” that the jump heights must be determined by the smallest dog on the team.

It’s fair to everyone because wins/losses cannot be attributed to another teams luck or bad luck at the measuring results. Wins/losses will be determined solely upon athleticism, training and skill.

WRs would be tracked according to jump height. Instead of the Regular WR there would be the Regular WR at 8″ jumps, Regular WR at 9″ jumps, etc. for both Regular and Multibreed.

The system would end arguments over measuring since we would not determine jump heights based on one dogs measurement. Thus, the insanity created by the measuring debates would end.

Ridicule me if you must. The idea is gaining support as people look for other ways to present challenges to competitors. Think of it. By declaring your jump height, you open up the World Records to 8 teams in Regular and 8 teams in Multi-breed!

….or, you can keep arguing over how to fix “measuring”.

chrisandblast@hotmail.com

And like you said, some dogs can be taught “to work the system” like they do now while others shy away. I just don’t know enough about how this system works yet. I am sure we’ll get more info or have you already seen the specifications for it? I know you get more “in the know” info than I do.

I just really thought it might be good to get all the systems we can together and compare them for consistency using an analytical approach.

Julia

Also the idea with the cube under the chest. How many dogs are going to stand still for you to stack cubes up under them. By the time you get done you will have the dogs on their toes to get away from it.

If we take every single method and measure X number of dogs, X number of times using each method, we could really establish consistency using an analytical and statistical approach. And CONSISTENCY is the name of the game.

Let us know as soon as you get more info on this method.

Thanks
Julia