Withering Debate

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

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