October 20, 2024

Episode 350: Interview with AWC Vice Champion Dalton Meredith

In this episode (1:03:16)

In this episode, we sit down with Dalton Meredith, the Intermediate height overall individual silver medalist from this year’s FCI Agility World Championship (AWC). Dalton shares his thoughts on the UK’s recent success at FCI events, his unique experience competing in a runoff for individual gold, and emerging trends in course design.

You Will Learn

  • Insights into the UK’s growing presence and success at the FCI Agility World Championship.
  • Dalton’s firsthand account of the intensity and excitement of a runoff for the individual gold medal.
  • Key trends in agility course design and how they are impacting competitors.
  • Where to follow Dalton and stay updated with his journey: Facebook and Instagram.

Mentioned/Related

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Sarah: Today we're going to be talking about the Agility World Championship and we have Jennifer Crank, obviously our co-host who was at Agility World Championship, but we also have a very special guest today. We have Dalton Meredith on the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Dalton.

Dalton: Hi, nice to be here.

Sarah: I am super excited to have Dalton on because we talked about, talking to Dalton last year and we couldn't get our calendars together. And I'm also just going to start the podcast off by saying that I'm very, very sad that I was not at this year's event. For those of you who have been with us for a long time, you know that we usually do an Agility World Championship Experience where we follow several competitors at the event, one in each height generally, and this year is all set up, ready to go, had my tickets booked and I had Dalton slated as my intermediate handler and then we had a medical emergency and I had to cancel the whole trip. So everything is fine now, but I was having some FOMO as the event was going on and especially on the very last day, but we'll get to that when we get to that. First off, Dalton, for those who don't know you, can you kind of give a little bit of a background of who you are and your experience in the sport and your dog Clippy?

Dalton: Yeah, sure. So obviously from the UK. I haven't been doing agility for probably as long as maybe some of the other handlers that have been knocking around for a while now. I think probably my first dog, he's about 14-years-old now and I started agility with him in the UK at a local club. So I got Clippy. She's bred by one of our close friends. She actually owns the dog Clippy. So something that not many people know that Clippy doesn't actually live with me 24, 7. So she lives with her breeder, Elaine Lamerton. She's a lovely person. All of the dogs that I've run over my agility career are all Fandabidozies, all the same line as hers. And yeah, they live with her. So they come on little spring break holidays with me and Jody we train them. She doesn't live far away and we haven't got as far to travel as you guys to see the dog, so it's a little bit easier to just drive an hour down the road and collect them.

And Clippy's six-years-old now. So we've been doing agility since she was very ready to go at about two-years-old. We were one of the dogs the same as everyone, but suffered the unfortunate time of COVID, so we missed so long in our agility career. I think we have a crazy grading system over here to get to the highest grade. The highest grade is grade seven and she didn't actually get there until she was I think three or four years-old, which I think that's quite normal. But just because we didn't have access to many shows, it meant that we then couldn't try out for our country until much later on in her career. I think we did EOs for the first time and she was about four-years-old, which is still young, I know that. But obviously with COVID and everything it did make a huge difference.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And I remember last year when... Well, I'll just say that last year you won Agility World Championship, gold medal, and what I found especially exciting about the whole thing was that it was the first time that we had the intermediate class. So for years and years and years, it's been three height classes at Agility World Championship, and then last year they added a fourth class, an intermediate class. It's essentially what here in the United States would be 20 inches. So it kind of gives those smaller large dogs essentially a place to go and compete and really shine. So I thought that that was really cool that you were like the first, like, you forever and all time will be the first intermediate Agility World Championship and it was like a clean sweep of the year because you were just coming off of winning the first European open that had the intermediate height class. So what was that like last year?

Dalton: Yeah, so it was a crazy year. Obviously we've had 50 centimeters height over here is what we call it, intermediate as well, for a few years. I'm not sure about when you guys got intermediate, was it recent? Or...

Sarah: In American Agility we have five height classes and we have for a very long time. So for us to collapse down to three, it has always been really difficult. There are certain heights of dogs that kind of get left out of that mix. So for us it's great to have that fourth height.

Dalton: Yeah.

Jenn: Yeah, we've had that jump height for a while, but what's interesting I think for us is our height cutoffs for the dogs are different. So we have dogs that can jump the intermediate height in the US but are not eligible to jump intermediate internationally. So it gets very confusing to know who's eligible for intermediate versus who is still a large, and I think as a person not invested, that was also part of [inaudible 00:06:32] last year is to see what dogs showed up in intermediate. If you've been following, you know that there are going to be some larges that come down to intermediate, but there's also going to be people that join the intermediate that maybe never did large before.

So that kind of inaugural EO in AWC was very exciting 'cause we had no, or at least I didn't really know who to keep an eye on. In a lot of the heights, "Oh, I'm going to watch out for this team or I'm going to pay attention to this team." And last year we didn't know what we were going to have, but it was very clear after last year that at the EO and AWC this year we needed to keep our eyes on Dalton.

Sarah: That's right.

Dalton: Yeah, so same as in the UK actually, our height cutoff is a lot higher. It's 50 centimeters, so we have lots of dogs that run intermediate in the UK, but when they come abroad or for FCI or they have to run in large. And another thing that's a bit backwards with the way that Clippy does it is actually in the UK she has to run large. Yeah, it's crazy. Back when the Kennel Club originally brought in the measuring system, it was called a lower height option and it was quite a few years back. Clippy must have been like two-years-old. And essentially we had to make a decision if we wanted to run a lower height option or large, we didn't know how long it would be for the dog's career if they were going to reopen up the measuring.

So back then there was quite a few handlers that opted in to stay in large because at the time they didn't know if FCI was ever going to bring in the intermediate height category. I was one of those people. So we did some testing and we went up and down the heights and Clippy really didn't enjoy it. So one minute she would be jumping large and then we would go down to 50 and then we would go back up to 60 and it just really wasn't very good for her. She struggled quite a lot changing between the heights, so the best way round that we could do it was jump her on large and then for the event do 50 'cause that seemed to be kinder rather than her go up for the event. So yeah. And then as that happened, we made the decision, like I said before COVID happened and then it meant that we were stuck in large.

So yeah, Clippy in the UK still has to run in large even though we have in intermediate, which seems crazy. Not a lot of people know that. So I get so many messages of people following us on social media and they're like, "You're jumping intermediate and then you're jumping large over in the UK," and it causes a lot of confusion like you said. Yeah.

Jenn: That's very interesting. I find that fascinating. I'm intrigued by that.

Dalton: I know whether or not it helps... Maybe it helps her. So she jumps large, really nice as well too, but when she goes down onto 50, it seems to make her go even faster. So I'm not encouraging anyone to do that, by the way. The other way around, I don't think that's a great idea.

Sarah: Right. Yeah, I remember looking at your results last year and then looking at the previous year and noting that Clippy was doing really well at big competitions like the EO at 24. So it was one of the things where I was like, "Okay, this is definitely a dog to keep the eye on if they've been making finals at 24 and now they're doing 20, essentially, that's going to be pretty awesome."

Dalton: Yeah, I mean she's a very talented little dog. Nothing seems to faze her, so I think she's just... Been very fortunate with Clippy. She does most of the hard work.

Sarah: Well, she does most of the hard work, but there is two entities in this team and you're a part of all of those successes. So I guess what do you consider your strengths? What do you consider your secret to success in handling?

Dalton: I don't know, one of the stronger things I would probably say that I've been blessed with is I don't seem to get too nervous. So when it comes to the big events, obviously I feel a little bit of pressure and it gets the adrenaline going, but fortunately for myself, I don't get too panicked, because obviously everyone knows that lots of the mistakes generally happen when people get a little bit nervous and they do silly things in their handling. It really helps me that I don't feel like that.

But again, I think maybe part of that is because I am running with Clippy and we've done quite a lot of big events over in the UK, over at Crufts and we have something called Olympia, which is this big horse show and she's done really well at those events and it's a similar sort of atmosphere, lots of people, lots of pressure, and then I think you get used to it a little bit. So I think that definitely helps. Maybe if I was running one of my younger dogs at the EOs for the first time, I might not be saying that I don't get nervous. I reckon that would be a different story. So I think having her helps me a little bit.

Jenn: And I'll also add kind of going back to your resume and your experience for those that don't know, Clippy was not your only dog that you were competing at AWC with, you had a medium, Munchy, right?

Dalton: That's correct.

Jenn: So I don't want to leave her out. I know she didn't have quite the grand finale that Clippy did, but it just is a testament to your experience as a handler and a trainer to get not just one but two dogs on the team and I feel like that your guys' team over there in the UK is doing really well, so to get not just one but two dogs on the team I think says a lot about your ability to train and handle as well.

Dalton: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think over in the UK, the UK like you just said, they're doing really well now. There would've been, I think going back maybe four or five years ago, not long ago, we did well, but maybe not as well as we're doing now as a whole team. I think it's a lot more balanced over all the heights, definitely. So yeah.

Sarah: Awesome.

Esteban: Well I think now's a good time because I meant to bring this up at some point during the podcast, but exactly this. So now the UK is suddenly I feel like they've re-arrived on the agility scene. England's the birthplace of dog agility, certainly, and then there was a period of time where everybody in Europe went off and started doing crazy things and doing all these different kinds of courses and really experimenting with handling and pushing the envelope of what both handlers and dogs could do, most likely the birthplace of the running contact. Certainly at least the popularization of the running contact, and it felt to me like North America and the UK just a little bit fell by the wayside. We were much less competitive at these big events. There was an almost extreme divergence in course design and of course I think course design, it has a big impact on the competitors and the kinds of dogs that are out there and winning and having success.

And now we have reached the point I think where both the US and the UK certainly are doing better in recent years than in the previous decade say, but the UK has really come on strong and you guys are putting up really big results and not just in the team events where sometimes you could say, "Oh, okay, well this country had a bunch of clean runs and they were the only country or one of two or three countries to get all clean runs, and so regardless of speed or ability or handling or anything like that, they get a medal." It wasn't like that. You guys were coming in and you guys are at the top of the game across the board as you mentioned, in many different heights. Okay, so my question to you is this, what happened? And what should other countries be doing?

Dalton: I'm sure our manager would like to say it was all down to his magic. But I think in terms of agility in the UK, I think it's really similar to your guys, like you said. I think recently and probably the last, again four or five years, we've been really fortunate, like, course designs changed hugely over here. The other thing that we also get access to now, which we never used to, and I think that was why it was the same, I was one of the similar cases would get really obsessed with trying to get over to Europe to do some shows or do some training over there with people that we've been watching on social media. But now in the UK we're actually fortunate enough to have some of those events on our own turf. So there's a lot of show organizers that are now running events with European judges. There's been a lot of work put into educating judges and course design. I think now we have big shows, I'm not sure I think similar to yours, but we have shows with 17 rings sometimes. So yeah, it's crazy. So obviously-

Sarah: That is nothing like what we have, by the way. We have nothing like that, but go ahead, go ahead.

Dalton: So I would say at least four to five shows that we have with plus 10 rings, there's 10 rings is a normal show and then getting up to 17 rings, there's about five shows of that throughout the year. And obviously the more sort of rings you have, and this has been the problem that we've always had in the UK is, the more rings means more judges and then sometimes less experienced judges. But now we've got really good educational system I would say, not from maybe the organization that runs the agility in our country, but people that are influencing it a little bit more now and yeah, I think it's really helped. So I would say what you said about the course design, I would say 100%, I think that's made a huge difference. Our dogs are getting to run on courses that we're more likely to see when we go to these events.

That helps for sure. Then the other thing is I think the experience of a couple of the handlers that are doing the team events or for FCI. We've got a few really experienced handlers now and that's really helped with people that are coming onto the team that are brand new because a lot of us over here in the UK, we're able to actually train together. It's not a huge area to travel all the time to, so we're fortunate enough to do seminars on a regular basis with people that we're pretty much seeing every weekend and that makes a huge difference, I believe, to our agility.

Sarah: Yeah, we've often talked about how the geography of the United States, it makes things a little bit different for us just in terms of, even just getting to nationals, getting to the big events. Everything is a big deal when it comes to travel and it can kind of end up segmenting the United States a little bit. So yeah, go ahead.

Esteban: Well yeah, let me jump in here and ask, you just mentioned training with each other and you mentioned the word seminar. So here in the US you say seminar, it's typically, you bring an instructor in and there's going to be anywhere from, I don't know, 8 to 20 people depending on the topic and the level of the dog and what they want to get done. So what is a training day? When you say seminar, do you also mean training day or do you mean there's a dedicated instructor? I want to get a sense for the kind of training you're doing, how often you're doing it on weekends, and I'm not talking about training by yourself, although I definitely want to about that as well, but when you get together with another team member or top handler and you're like, Hey, we're going to work through this course or these courses, what is that day or what does that weekend look like for you? How far do you travel? What do you guys do? How do you plan it out?

Dalton: Yeah, sure. So probably the most familiar phrase in the UK would be training day, not really seminar. I think I said seminar 'cause maybe it would be a bit more relatable, but over here in the UK, there's a lot of training available now, so I think probably I would say a good maybe 70% of the team members that was on this year's team are instructors their self. So we all sort of teach over here in the UK, so there's lots of availability for the training day sort of style. And what we tend to do over here is we have two-hour sessions. This is our basic format should I say we have a two-hour session and in that two hour group we'll have six people in a group.

And I think the reason why that sort of helped, like I said, with having at least 70% of the people on the team teach is, it just means that when those people are also teaching other people, even at a grassroots level or a lower level in the UK, we're sort of passing on the course design or experience or things that we are picking up that other people are doing that are doing well. So I think that's why also the UK has also started to progress a little bit now just because it's a big community but also maybe a little bit easier to influence training techniques or help or show people what's working and what's not working probably. I think that's probably the best thing.

Esteban: What are your thoughts on running contact, so the evolution of running contact specifically there in the UK?

Dalton: Yeah, again, this is really new. I think Clippy is... No, Munchy was my first, Clippy was my second. And Munchy, she's nearly nine this year and she started out with stop contacts and she's a retrain now. Clippy did start out with running, but I do think again over the last five years there's been quite a new thing still. If you came to one of our shows over in the UK, I think you would still see a good over half the percentage of the class still using stop contacts. It's still super popular over here, so running is new but obviously I'm all for it. I think at the international level, the dogs are so fast, it's not going to help if you have a running contact, obviously it's got to be a good one though.

Sarah: Yeah.

Esteban: Right.

Sarah: Right, right.

Esteban: Right.

Sarah: Yeah. One thing that I feel like I've noticed recently is that it's like the running contact and the course design go hand-in-hand because people have pretty strong opinions on, for instance, turns off of the dog walk and how appropriate that is from a course design standpoint. And so I feel like we see that less and less and less and less in terms of there being significant turns off of the contact. And so then that is going to promote the running contact more and more and more and more as fewer of the times that you are doing it, do you have to worry about turns? You can get that straight running contact and that's going to be the majority of what you see. Do you kind of feel that way or is that just the big events where they know that all eyeballs are on the course or what do we think about turns and dog walks?

Dalton: Yeah, I totally agree. Over here, again, we've been really fortunate. Again, like I said, the course design has improved so much. We rarely see a big turn off the dog walk. I'm not against turns off of contacts, I'm all for it if they're nice on the dogs. The only thing that always for myself worries me or makes me paranoid is when you get a lot of speed onto the dog walk and then it's a turn off of the dog walk. That's quite hard for the dogs. I think we're really fortunate now, we don't really see much of that again this year at AWC, just as an example, I don't think there was even one. I think they were all sort of soft exits for the dogs, really nice that they looked fairly natural, but yeah. We don't tend to see them that much. So I think again, the running contacts are going to be more and more used over here in the UK as well.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely.

Esteban: Well, now, I guess we are wandering a little bit into course design. I have some general questions for you. So what is your opinion on course design internationally, say over the last two to three years? I'm going to lead with my opinion here. I feel like we've kind of reached a little bit of a plateau where course design has not changed in my opinion very much over the last two or three years. I'm thinking specifically the European Open, the Agility World Championship, of course these are FCI hosted events. And elements, like, I think perhaps in general, the emphasis of backsides. I remember there was a time in international competition where you would see multiple backsides on a single course. I think the courses are big, like maximally big now. Every course is a big course and the contact element, there's always going to be a dog walk and it's going to have a tunnel intersecting that dog walk and forcing handlers wide of either the tunnel or the dog walk as you bring the dog through there more than once, first time on the dog walk, second time on one of the tunnels.

But I feel like the courses are becoming very, very familiar and what happens there in my opinion, once there's mastery by the very top handlers such as yourself, the winners, the podium, the placements are now going to come down to who has the fastest dog and you're also going to see a very tight clustering of dogs at the very top where their times are very, very close and perhaps even ending in a tie.

Jenn: I feel like there's a bit of foreshadowing.

Esteban: Yeah, yeah. So I want to get your thoughts. Do you feel this way about these big competitions?

Dalton: Yeah, I definitely think this time, just on the times quickly, we've seen a record number of times that were exactly the same this year at AWC. I think it happened six times or more. So definitely seems to be the speed is coming into it, but in terms of design, what the dogs are doing, I'm all for less sort of forced handling for the dogs on a course. I really like it if the dogs can run on a nice line and do their verbal skills as the reason that they're doing that. I know it's important to have some handling, but I think the thing with too much handling or handling where it's sort of changing the dog's direction unexpectedly is where you seem to see dogs on handlers maybe be slightly late and then the dogs go to do something and then they slip or they fall or they crash into a wing or something.

I do think it's important that we are still maybe trying to do the sport on both levels so there is handling involved, but the dogs have equally got time to be given a verbal cue that they can then perform the action sort of thing. I do think sometimes with the accidents with dogs falling, like I said, it's generally when there's maybe too much handling, which I don't think we've seen that much like you said at this year's championships, so I think there was still handling for the handler, but you was able to maybe use your verbal cues more to direct the dog as to what to do.

Esteban: Oh, interesting. And let me take a quick tangent here before we come back to all the times that happened this year and your role in that. Between the European Open and the Agility World Championship, in your opinion, generally, which competition has more difficult courses? However, you want to define the word difficult.

Dalton: Well, as a whole, maybe not just my height?

Esteban: Mm-hmm.

Dalton: Oh, that's a really tough one. I don't know that I can answer that 'cause I haven't studied the rest of the courses that well. I know-

Esteban: Okay, well what about for your height then?

Dalton: I feel like intermedia EOs and Agility World Championships, I feel like we were blessed with really nice courses. There wasn't one course that I ran that I disliked. I think that [inaudible 00:26:07]. And I do actually think that we had in the jumping run, the course was tricky, but that was probably the most handling course I think I ran for quite a long time. There were still the routes for the dogs to decide, but that was definitely more handler focused. So that was quite interesting actually that yous mentioned that. And then that course was very more handling. But yeah, I think that it's really hard to know. I think every course suits a dog differently, so if I was to say it was harder in one respect, I'm sure there would be people that would think that it was easier for them just because it depends on how you run, I guess. That's the [inaudible 00:26:45]-

Esteban: Sure, sure.

Dalton: ... of it. You don't really know until... Obviously, you get the courses from the judges and you can study them, but I always think they're slightly different to what you'd be expecting, maybe. But there's traits that are similar.

Sarah: Right. Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you a little bit Esteban on the backsides, because I feel like backsides are very prominent in today's courses, because I think that they're the primary way that judges are creating significant turns. So judges are not having dogs take a jump straight on and then have a 180 degree wrap back, in general. In general, they would send them to the backside to create that 180 degree wrap because it builds in the deceleration, it builds in the arc for the dog. And so I think that there are quite a few backsides, but they're generally all where the dog is headed. The dog is headed generally in the correct direction most of the time and it's about adjusting that path.

Dalton: Yeah, definitely. Again, it comes back to, I always think if you watch, I know some dogs are different, but my favorite type of agility is to always watch that it looks like the dogs are smooth, it doesn't look like it's out of control sort of thing. And I think course design obviously does change that, especially with the speed that the dogs are going now. So yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Esteban: Yeah, I agree.

Sarah: Jennifer, what do you think?

Jenn: I think as far as the backside part, what I was thinking when you guys were talking, and I don't know that this, I have no stats to back this up, but going back several years ago when we did see the dog take the jump as a backside, we were truly handling it as a backside. The evolution of threadle skills wasn't super popular, so we viewed everything as a backside. We had to be on the inside of the curve to push the dog to the back. And over the last several years, we now have so much more proficiency and knowledge and skill on threadles that of the times I'm sending my dog to the back, I feel like it's a very balance of what's a backside, what's a threadle, so it makes backsides seem like we're doing less backsides. Like, I'm queuing my backside less, but I've just replaced it with threadles. So I don't know that the courses have really backed off on that skill as much as just the evolution of handling and knowledge.

Like, I look at all of my last three dogs and I go back to 2016 when I was on the team and at the time I thought that dog was really skilled and I look now and I'm like, "She knew nothing." We didn't teach threadles, she didn't have a threadle. It was just be on the inside of the curve or that kind of thing. And so I think it's just sort of evolution of knowledge and dog training and information. And so things, I don't want to say the courses, seem easier. I don't know that the courses are easier, although I did think this year was a little bit easier at AWC than last year, but it might've just been how the mediums ended up with our judges, but I felt more prepared. And I think that's to be expected. Each year you're hoping to go into it and feeling better and it's going to make the courses seem easier, but it's not necessarily that the courses are easier, it's that your more refined as a team and more skilled as a team.

Sarah: Yeah, I think one of the things at last year's AWC specifically, and I've been as a spectator to three of the last five, we didn't go the first year after COVID and I went the two before that and I went last year and then this year I had to cancel. But I felt like last year specifically, I was just flabbergasted by the skill level of essentially the entire world on handling these courses. I was really, really impressed. And obviously not everybody can win and not everybody has the speed, and there were some dogs that were significantly slower than the top dogs, but they still had the skill to go through the course. I'm remembering some specific dogs who were not your typical breed and they're nowhere close to hitting the times of the fastest dogs, but they could handle the course. And I found that shocking and amazing and really kind of a testament to where we are as an entire sport.

And I don't think it's because the courses were easy. I think it is because the sport has progressed that much and the knowledge has disseminated that much and the expectation of what a dog can and should be able to do on course has really, really shifted across the board, across the world and across all levels and organizations. And so I think that that kind of lends to the feeling that maybe things are a little easy. I think to me, instead of thinking of it as easy or hard, I go back to a question that Esteban and I asked, and I'd have to look up when this was, but it was over a decade ago before Jenn joined the podcast, we had a podcast called Have We Solved the Game of Dog Agility. Essentially the idea was like tic-tac-toe. You can't play tic-tac-toe because it's a solved game.

You know what your starting move and almost every game ends in a tie, right, 'cause it's so well known. And it's kind of funny that 10 years ago we asked have we solved agility because it's so different now and the skills are so beyond what they were when we did that podcast. And so every time I think, "Wow, I don't know where we go from here," I remind myself that I also thought, "I don't know where we go from here 10 years ago or 15 years ago," but yeah, it feels like that sometimes you're like...

And I think it goes hand in hand like Dalton said, with course design and with safety and with what we want out of agility for our dogs, because I think that it's not just that we've developed all of these skills and all of these ways of doing the course, but in some ways we've also narrowed down what we expect the dog to do because we've eliminated everything that is overly physically difficult for the dog. We have eliminated things that are frankly unsafe for the dog, but that narrows down what we can ask of the dog, if that makes sense. And so I feel like this kind of combination of the course design is getting better and better and better, but in a way that can limit the challenge in certain areas. Like, there's only a certain number of ways that you can do things and our training has gotten better and better and better and better.

Esteban: Yeah. That is an interesting perspective. Well, I think let's first check in here with Dalton. Take us through your intermediate results and I think we'll easily be able to tie it back into this discussion about course design and kind of evolution of courses in FCI.

Sarah: You mean for Agility World Championship specifically?

Esteban: Yes.

Sarah: All right, it's time. It is time to talk about the actual Agility World Championship.

Jenn: The moment we've been waiting for.

Sarah: The moment we've been waiting for. So Dalton, take us through your AWC. It was exciting. I was very, very sad I wasn't there.

Dalton: Yeah, I think also this year with the... I don't know how many you've done, but this year for me, the venue as well. I thought it was so cool. It was so big. It was amazing. They did a really good job. So before we'd even started competing, I feel like I was the most excited I've been at a championship ever 'cause it was so cool. The opening ceremony had these cool lights, I think they even had a smoke machine, which was amazing. So yeah. So do you want me to talk about the jump in first?

Sarah: Sure.

Dalton: Yeah. So I can't remember my overall place. I'm not very good. I think it was 6th or 5th.

Jenn: It was 6th.

Dalton: Yeah, 6th. I think I was similar. I know I'm bringing up the following year, but I think I was similar the year before. I think I was 6th place as well the year before, which was really interesting 'cause I seem to have this overall theory in my head of getting eliminated in the very first round, so I always take it a little bit easy, if that makes sense a little bit or a little bit safer.

Jenn: I'm retracting that. You were 4th in individual jumping-

Sarah: I was just about to say.

Dalton: I was like, "Oh, lovely."

Sarah: I just pulled it up and it's 4th.

Dalton: [inaudible 00:35:20].

Jenn: And I know because I was looking at Team USA and I know Emily was 5th and I was thinking, I knew you bordered one side of her and then as soon-

Dalton: It was really close.

Jenn: ... as I said that, I was like, "You weren't that low." So I needed to insert that. My apologies. Retraction fourth place in jumping.

Sarah: And-

Dalton: I think-

Esteban: There was a tie there.

Sarah: ... as I'm looking at this there a tie for second.

Esteban: Yeah. Run through the results just very quickly. So first place was a 35:98 it looks like, and then there was a tie for second 36:49, 2 different dogs. Then you are 36:51, so you're two one hundredths of a second out from essentially a three-way tie for second. Yeah.

Dalton: It was so close and again, it was almost weirdly close with all the timings, but I think again the agility, the dogs are getting so good now. I think like you said, we're going probably as much as we can do with the dogs as in training and making as fast as they can go. So naturally now, I wouldn't even be surprised over, unless they change the timing, future championships we see other ties because the dogs are just getting to a similar level now. So yeah, the jumping. So yeah, it was 4th, which was good. It must've been the year before I was sick, I think. I did take a couple of safe routes on the jumping. I don't know if you guys can remember.

Esteban: What do you mean by safe routes?

Dalton: So routes that meant that I was potentially not likely to get eliminated. I think when we were talking about courses and handling, I feel like this jumping course that we did at AWC was particularly handly. That's the best way to describe it. There was lots of options that you could maybe do handling to make it less likely to get eliminated. There was also the options to go the fastest route with the skills and really push and get the fastest run as you can. But I think when I'm running Clippy, I also have a little bit of, not comfortability, but I feel maybe safer knowing that she's extremely fast. So maybe I can afford to lose a tiny little bit of time on a course, not as in a detour, but if I was to take one wing versus another wing, it probably would only impact my time by 0.5 of a second or something. Nothing huge.

Esteban: Yeah, yeah, no. Looking at those results, it's crazy, the clustering, but now I'm going to have to go back and look at the course map and look at your run.

Jenn: It was definitely a very, I feel like kind of tight and handling course. Watching it, I hate to say this with nothing on to judge, it didn't have a lot of flow. It all just seemed tight and some awkward lines. It didn't seem like an intermediate course. If you had given the same course to the smalls, I don't know that it would've played out, but it was one of the more memorable courses of all of the courses from AWC because of all the things that you just talked about. And I know having been there and watched your run very closely, I know exactly what you're talking about on some of the places where you would do a curl. I know on the one spot as I was looking at it was back, right. I can visually see it where a lot of handlers did a slice and you did a curl.

I think Clippy's really noodly and bendy and good at those, and so it was one of the spots where I was a little surprised you did the curl. And then I was like, "But for that dog, it was a safe, solid plant and you've got such tight turns that it worked." I mean it all worked. But yeah, that course definitely take a look at it. That's fun. It was funky.

Esteban: Okay, I'm definitely going to take a look at that. Okay, so you have jumping and now they do the reverse seeding for agility. So you were fourth, so you're running 4th to the end, right. And so, how did you plan that run? What were you thinking? What was on your mind? How did it go?

Dalton: Yeah, so again, a bit different to the jumping, I think knowing that you need to make up a little bit of time now in the agility really meant that you have no option to probably go maybe some of the fastest routes. I think now, especially as always, I think at AWC the competition is really high. You don't really have that much room for error. So going into the agility. I think I prefer running myself, like I said last year as well at AWC, I was running in six from the end. I think running in that position for me is probably my favorite. I think running last as well is a hard position to run 'cause potentially you know that you really have to go for it or maybe you don't even really need to go for it 'cause everyone's gone wrong. I don't know which would be harder.

Esteban: Right.

Dalton: That would be great to just know-

Esteban: Right, absolutely.

Dalton: ... that you just need to get round. So yeah, being in 4th was quite a good position because I think that it just gave me the opportunity to just go for it as much as I could and not worry too much about the outcome, as in, I just had to do the best run I could do. So there was less either side of thinking about what to do. I think even in my agility run, I still chose two wraps over two slices, potentially. There was one off the seesaw and then one towards the end, which I think lots of handlers chose a slice and I chose a wrap. But again, I think it was it what felt right at the time. We was talking about this the other day, it would've been interesting to see what my time would've been if I had chose the slices because I genuinely don't know which one was faster and we'll never know. But yeah, that would be interesting to see.

Sarah: Well, and it's not like you didn't do well 'cause you won that round, so your choices on that one, you won agility and so then what happened next for those who don't know?

Dalton: Yeah, I mean I was on the ground looking at the... 'Cause obviously everyone's like... We're on the ground after, we just got the dogs. They've had a play and we scanned the microchip and we're stood there looking up, waiting for the results to load and the agility is like, winner of the agility and I'm like, "Oh, this is perfect. I think I did it." People are like, "Oh yeah, you've done it. I think it's enough." "Hold on, this looks really close. I'm not sure now." And then the times come up and they were matching. Obviously it was weird. Although, I actually feel like because of these championships with all the ties, it felt less weird.

Sarah: Oh yeah?

Esteban: Right.

Dalton: Like, the 6th time it had happened by the time we got to that point.

Esteban: Right. And so then at that point an official comes down and talks with you to let you know what's going to happen?

Dalton: Yeah, I think I can probably talk about it now, but it was very drawn out. It was not an easy process. There was lots of things that were changing. No one actually knew what was going to happen. Originally we knew there was a rule that if you tie for individual overall for the world championships, you must run a third course that was in the exercise rule book. But there wasn't anything else as to, like, I guess I'm allowed to talk about this, but me and Iwona, who obviously came the same time as me, we both discussed not running. So we felt like the dogs have done a lot of work.

They were like four days in, we'd both done team and individual and I know it's only one more run, but even to warm up for a run like that in agility, I think I had Clippy out maybe for 40 minutes prior to her run. Not necessarily tiring her out, but getting her ready for her run, walking around, she stayed in the venue for 30 minutes because she likes to be, and get used to the noise in the crowd. So by the time that she'd then actually done her run, maybe she wasn't tired, but I feel like it was a lot for her. So we discussed about not running and-

Esteban: Well, I love that. I think that's a great solution, right.

Dalton: Yeah, yeah.

Esteban: You get together and you're like, "Hey, we can both win here."

Jenn: We kept sitting in the stands, like, "Is this a Hunger Games situation?" Like, "We both eat the berry together and..."

Dalton: No, it was good. I will say it, Iwona was amazing. Between the two of us, we were really good at talking together, discussing what was going to happen 'cause we didn't really knew and neither did our team, like, country. We were trying to find out the answer. So yeah, we did discuss that. That wasn't a possibility. There needed to be a run-off just because that was the rules in the end. So yeah, we both decided we had to do it. I think the good thing was they made a slightly shorter course, nothing too crazy. So I think if we'd kept running, likely there would've been a clear, so I think that was sensible, but-

Sarah: So I thought that what they did was have you run the large dog course, but did they renumber it?

Dalton: Yes, correct. Actually, I also forgot about this. So we both ended up walking the large agility round thinking that we were going to run that. So that was also the confusion. So by the time we knew what was going on, we were walking the large agility running, thinking we would be running the same course at the end. And then that got changed as well at the end, and a new course plan came out very similar. So it wasn't too much of a big deal. But yeah, it was all bit surreal. It was a good one to remember. I think given the outcome, like, even if I had myself won gold, this was more memorable for me and it's still a pretty cool result, so the way it turned out worked, like, okay.

Esteban: I think here in the United States, at least for AKC competitions, Jenn, correct me if you remember differently, when we have ties, they just run the same course again, right? The exact same course, usually, like a big event?

Jenn: So in our local events, like our local trials, yeah, they would just rerun the same course. So if we just had a tie, they would just rerun it and that would determine it. But what was interesting as an outsider as like a slightly different perspective, we didn't know what was happening and what the rules were either, and it was very cool to watch and have it all unfold and watch you guys both cross the finish line and look up at the times and see there was a tie. But for cumulative scoring, almost all of the events in the states, the agility round breaks the tie. So almost everything that we do, if it's cumulative scoring and your combined time is the same or even our premium stuff state that the tiebreaker will be whoever won agility. So we were, without knowing the rules in the United States stands immediately thought that you won Dalton because you won the agility round.

And so we're like, "Wow, that's crazy. There's a tie, but Dalton's going to win 'cause he won agility." So to kind of have to sit back and see how the rules played out. We kept getting these updates of like, "Okay, they're going to run the large course. Oh nope, they're not going to run the large course 'cause by the rule book, that's too long. It has to be shorter." And then it was like, "Okay, well what happened... Oh, there's a coin toss," right. There was a coin toss that determined which of you ran first. And so we were like-

Sarah: That's what I was going to ask.

Jenn: ... "Ooh, the coin toss." And then what happens if they both [inaudible 00:46:48]? We were playing out all the scenarios in our head. But yeah, in the States, the agility round would've been the tiebreaker. So that was also the thing we were discussing 'cause I wonder if FCI will reevaluate the rules and change the rules, or-

Sarah: I think they should.

Jenn: ... go to another-

Sarah: It seems messy.

Jenn: ... decimal point. Like, we also go to an extra decimal point in the States.

Sarah: Right, right.

Jenn: The rumor in the stands was that they did not feel the equipment was accurate enough to go to a third decimal place place. I don't know if that's something they'll look at down the road, but yeah, we'd either rerun the same course, do a coin toss or use the agility as the final score for a tie.

Sarah: Yeah, I was watching the live stream and so I actually screenshotted the live stream chat because everybody was talking about it and debating what should be done and there were strong opinions about, "They should both be winners," or, "The one who won agility should be the winner," and all of this stuff. And then for those who weren't following Iwona ran first with a clean run, has made it through the whole thing, and then Dalton, you ran and had a fault, but seeing the two of you and the sportsmanship and everything, it was truly incredible.

Dalton: Yeah, it was really cool. Like I said, even if I'd have done really well and won the gold, I feel like for me this has probably been more memorable. So the way it's turned out and no one was disappointed, everyone was really happy, it was quite fun. And again, I think it's never going to happen again. So it was like the first time and last time. I'm sure they won't leave the rules the same. I'm sure, yeah, it'll never happen again now, which is another cool thing for little Clippy to have into a catalog of achievements. So yeah.

Sarah: Does it help that you were already a world championship? Does that help a little bit?

Dalton: 100%. That was one of the things that I got asked straight after. They were like, "You're very chilled about this." And I was like, "It definitely was." 'Cause I think even winning world championships once in a dog's lifetime is pretty amazing. So to get close enough the second time, it doesn't feel as... I'm sure if I hadn't won I would've felt worse.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dalton: Yeah, definitely.

Sarah: Absolutely. I mean, well, it's funny that you say that first time, last time that it'll probably never happen again because-

Esteban: I was just going to say, Jay said, "Absolutely, it's going to happen next year." [inaudible 00:49:22] you said that out loud.

Sarah: So there is another handler, and I'm sure you know that it happened, but I don't know if either of you have spoken to this handler. Her name's Aneta from the Czech Republic, and last year she made the podium running three dogs. So it's a four dog team, one score gets dropped. She was running three dogs and had a fourth team member, her team member Ede, and she ran clean with all three of her dogs and was fast enough to medal, and then she also won an individual medal. So she came... And again, I thought, "Well, that's an amazing storyline. That's never going to happen again." And then this year she came out and did even better, I believe, right. So these kind of weird things can happen and there can be repeats. I guess, did either y'all have any thoughts or conversations or experience that storyline with that handler at all?

Dalton: With Aneta?

Sarah: Yes.

Dalton: Yeah. I mean, I think everyone knows Aneta now. She's like [inaudible 00:50:31] I think.

Sarah: Yeah, right.

Dalton: I think everyone think she's incredible, she's like a machine. I always think after I've done one run, imagine I have to go two more dogs, maybe one more dog, but not two more. But I didn't get a chance to talk to her very much at the competition, I think. But yeah, her runs were incredible. And I think actually she actually tied as well. Did you see that in the-

Sarah: No, I didn't.

Dalton: Yeah, so her agility round, I think as the team tied with Germany... Or was it not Germany, it was maybe another team. But yeah, they tied same time. So that was six dogs put in exactly the same time cumulative, which is crazy. But again, I think it just shows how well or how fast we're getting the dogs to do things now and it's just going to happen. So maybe actually saying it won't happen again. It definitely is going to happen [inaudible 00:51:21]-

Sarah: I know, right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm pulling up... Yeah-

Jenn: Yeah. [inaudible 00:51:28]-

Sarah: ... so she won gold.

Jenn: ... agility. Yeah, there was a tie for gold.

Sarah: Wow, that is crazy.

Jenn: In the individual rounds, whether it was individual or on the single rounds, I don't know how to best say it, whether it was team or individual on the single rounds when there was a tie, there was no runoff. They just awarded the medal to both. But it was for the overall medals that we had to have the tiebreaker because I think it's crazy to think that there was a tie for overall. You think, "Okay, two dogs on one run, you're going to have a tie. Okay, maybe, but the overall is crazy." So there was a lot of ties, but we only have the one, you know, all excitement for the runoff at the end.

Sarah: And I see why you probably remembered that because the UK got bronze on that run, on that tee run.

Dalton: Yeah, yeah. She did well. So I remember being on the podium and talking to her, so that was cool.

Sarah: Right, right.

Esteban: Wait, so how did they resolve the tie for the team? Did they just award both teams gold?

Sarah: Yeah, that's what [inaudible 00:52:25]-

Esteban: So they did that there, but they didn't do that for the individual?

Sarah: Well-

Jenn: It's a single round.

Sarah: ... it's just one round. It wasn't the cumulative.

Esteban: Ah, okay.

Sarah: Combined, yeah.

Esteban: I see, I see.

Sarah: The overall world champion was not a tie-

Esteban: [inaudible 00:52:38].

Dalton: Although that did cause a lot of talking because then people were like, "You've done it once," but it wasn't quite the same, but yeah, that was a lot of [inaudible 00:52:46]. But I think because that also happened, that was what caused a lot of confusion as to what would happen in the main-

Esteban: Right, right.

Sarah: So what I want to know is-

Esteban: I think they need to address that.

Sarah: Right.

Esteban: Yeah.

Sarah: What I want to know is did they have extra medals lying around or did they have to say, "We're going to have to mail you one later."

Dalton: I think that was the reason they couldn't buy any more medals. [inaudible 00:53:08].

Esteban: That's right. They're like, "Yeah, you guys are going to have to fight it out."

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we have gone almost an hour here. As we wrap up, I would love to hear how Jennifer's experience was at AWC. Well, we didn't get to you very much this podcast, Jenn.

Jenn: That's okay. There wasn't a lot to get to. So my AWC, the thing that I'll say is it was way better than last year. Last year I had a lot of off courses to tunnels. I had three E's last year over my four rounds, and all of them were off courses to tunnels and I E'd twice on one round to [inaudible 00:53:47] tunnel. So you know what we worked this past year and actually not going to a tunnel cost us an E this year. So we started off the weekend good on our team runs. We were clean in team jumping with a really nice run. And then in team agility, we just had five faults. So I was very, very happy. Team is super hard for me. I have a lot of angst and mental issues with doing team. It's very hard. I don't like other people relying on me and the pressure of running team.

So I was very pleased that I at least held myself together for the team runs. If I'm going to fault, I'd rather fault an individual. And then that's what happened. So we went over to individual and on the individual jumping, I felt really good about the part that I ended up faulting. I was actually worried about the section before it and got through it and I was like, "Oh, this is going great. Look, I got through the hard part." And I basically just had a mental lapse in what I was supposed to be doing on the course and ended up with a fault, but it was totally handling, it wasn't her. We were great. And then of course in individual agility, we had nothing on the line because we've E'd in jumping. So we just went out and tried to have a nice run and she didn't go to the tunnel, so there was kind of a really easy dog walk tunnel discrimination, and I didn't even think twice about it, and I just sent her to the tunnel and left.

And she's like, "Oh wait, we just spent a year doing don't take the tunnel," so she ended up on the dog walk and we had fun with it. So not really much to report and come home with other than I'm very pleased with our improvements. I felt better about the courses, even the runs that we faulted, I never felt super overwhelmed about the courses, which is more than I can say last year. No knocked bars, no major training issues, no weave pole faults, nothing like that. So even though the results don't show it, I'm happy with our performance and have a good direction of where I need to go between now and next year, or at least until we have our tryouts in May.

Sarah: Right. And I just want to give a huge shout-out to Jenn as a trainer and as a coach, because we have our VIP group, our VIP membership, and we do run analyses every month. And so when she came back from AWC... So normally I don't let Jenn analyze her runs for the VIP because we do the AWC experience and her analysis of her runs are part of the AWC experience. But since we didn't do that this year, I asked her to pick any run that she wanted to analyze for the VIP members. I didn't tell her which run to do or anything, and she chose that jumper's run where she had faulted. So she could have chose a perfect run, but she chose a run that she felt like had some [inaudible 00:56:38]-

Jenn: I was going to say I thought there was more to learn. There was more to gain by talking about the course and why I chose the handling that I did 'cause I did some less popular options. And then to honestly talk about why the mistake happened 'cause I think it's hard to just watch it through real quickly and see why it happened. So I thought that I would do the course that was going to help the most people and not necessarily just analyze my one clean run. So that's why I did it. It's all for the students.

Sarah: I think that's great, but I don't know that everybody has that in them to kind of put the microscope on themselves that way. So I just thought that it was really cool that that's what she chose to do, given that I didn't necessarily ask for it. I gave her kind of leeway to do whatever she wanted there. So thank you for that. And I know the VIP loved that. And then for I guess larger team USA, we did have one podium, right?

Jenn: Yes. Yeah, so looking at some of the highlights for Team USA. We did have one podium, and that was for our intermediate team in agility. So in looking at the four scores and then they drop a score for the agility round, our intermediate team took gold. So that was very, very exciting. We got to run the victory lap, they got to go out on the podium, do a little bit of an interview. So that was our big podium for our team, but we had some other really phenomenal finishes. I think collectively, as I look at the results, the best year that Team USA's had in quite a while, our large team ended up 4th overall, so just off the podium. 4th is always kind of a hard spot to be, but our large team got 4th overall, and our intermediate team who won the agility round, they did end up 5th overall.

So pretty good there. I think individually combined, our top finishes were in large, Channan and Griz finished 4th. So again, kind of a tough spot to be, but Channan was also part of the large team, so she ended up 4th individually and 4th in team. So huge kudos to that. And then in intermediate, we had a combined six place finish with JuliAnna and Fusion. And then we had a lot of individual rounds. I mean our large jumping, we had three of our large individual jumping in the top-twenty.

So we had Jenny at 10th, Griz at 11th, Seismic at 19th, Emily and Vanish finished 5th in individual. For intermediate Fusion was 13th. Individual agility, Griz was 6th and Bob was 10th. So lots of really great placements. And smalls, Han finished 12th in individual jumping in the small dog as well and finished 17th overall. So lots of great results across the heights, across team and individual, across standard and jumping. So I think the diversity is there. It's not like we're just doing good in one height or we're just doing good in jumping. So to have some improvements over the past several years is really... It gives us a lot to look forward to. It's very encouraging for Team USA.

Sarah: And to kind of put it in perspective for people who may not follow the results quite as closely or kind of see the jostling that happens when you combine jumpers and agility. I know at least last year I was shocked at how far teams could jump between one round and the next. So there were some pretty amazing coming from 8th to medal. So being in that 10th, 12th, even 17th position does not put you out of the medal. I remember, let's see, I think it was individual large last year. There was somebody who went from 22nd to bronze. So they were 22nd in jumpers, and they ended up bronze after agility because you just never know what each course is going to bring. And so many of the dogs above you are going to fault and there's going to be different challenges that different people have more or less skill on. So I think, like you said, anything in the top 20 is a fantastic outcome.

Esteban: All right, well, Dalton, now I want to know where people can find you. So we got a lot of people, they're like, "Oh, who's this Dalton fellow and can I train with them?" So locally and online, do you have a presence? Are you an instructor? Are you purely in competition?

Dalton: Yeah, so I do teach over in the UK. I do quite a lot of training days, like I called them before. We do a lot of that teaching over in the UK. So I don't have that many things abroad at the minute. I've been asked a lot, like, last year as well, after last year, but me and my partner Jody as well, everyone's really busy, but we've got our business that we run that's not agility related. So we're always super busy doing that. And then I think we do teach obviously, but the competitions abroad at the minute have mainly been just for the competitions, not for training so much. But you never know, maybe especially with my American passport, can fly over, see you guys.

Esteban: That's right. The time is right for a North American tour. That's what I'm hearing here.

Dalton: Yeah, that'd be a good holiday as well.

Esteban: So social media, do you prefer people to get a hold of you on Facebook? Are you on Facebook, Instagram? Or...

Dalton: Yeah, I think that's the best place. Facebook, Instagram, nothing special for anything training because it's only ever been just local in the UK. But yeah, if they want to follow me, have a look on Facebook. I post some videos every now and again, see what I'm up to. Yeah, that'd be great.

Sarah: All right, well thank you so much for joining us today. And of course, Jenn, always, I love having you on doing double duty as host and competitor. And that's it for this week's podcast. We'd like to thank our sponsors, Saint Rocco's Treats, and hititboard.com. Check out the the Teeter "Teach It!" only at hititboard.com. The Teeter "Teach It!" is an easy-to-use tool that controls the amount of tip on your teeter so you can introduce motion to your dog in a gradual way. Go to hititboard.com for the new Teeter "Teach It!" and other training tools and toys. Use discount code BDA10 to get 10% off your order. That's hititboard.com. Happy training.

Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Bad Dog Agility. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. For more information, updates and links to all our socials, just check out our website, www.baddogagility.com. If you haven't already signed up for our email subscription, we would love to have you join the BDA community. Until next time, take care.

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