2 Seconds is an Eternity

It's amazing on any run how much time we actually give up. A tenth here, half a second somewhere else, few extra yards on that wide turn...soon you haven't lost just a tenth or two, but a full second or more that can easily be shaved off. Every tenth, and hundredth truly counts out there when you get down to it. Because of this realization, I time everything... I'm pretty neurotic about timing splits, and I have to say that I lose a TON of time on really silly things every run. I even time other dogs that are faster/have better trained equipment behaviors to see how much improvement is possible for Whimzy.

Over the past year I've been timing Whimzy's teeter from the time she puts a paw on the board to when her paws touch the ground. I have to admit that I slacked off on training the teeter; it didn't seem like a big deal that she stopped short and waited for it to tip before going to the end. But as I discovered after timing her execution of the obstacle over and over, that it was costing us a lot more time than I expected. At our worst...3.2 seconds. She averaged about 1.8-2 seconds all last fall and into this spring. With some drills and extra teeter work she now consistently has a 1.03-1.09 second teeter. That's one to two seconds just on that little 12 foot board! And anyone who watches times at local shows or at big events knows that 2 seconds is an eternity in agility. Looking back at our 3 second teeter from AKC Nationals this year, I started wondering how much does 2 seconds really mean against the majority of dogs? I found out that it means quite a bit when you're running against 180-440 dogs per class, minus the 26" class which was 60 dogs for 2014. But for all the classes 2 seconds was a fairly good spread.

I looked at the first place dog's time and added two seconds (approx*), and then looked at how many places down another 2 seconds was. Mostly did this just to get a ball park of how many spots someone could realistically move up simply by shaving 2 seconds off their time.

                In the 8" Standard Class               In the 12" Standard Class

                1st-  31.588 Torment, Dunn           1st-  30.323 Bliss, Schmidt
                8th-  33.646 Gunner, Rudy            7th-  32.350 Dreamer, Beasley
                20th-  35.623 James, Ewins           25th-  34.254 Cruise, Angel

                In the 16" Standard Class             In the 20" Standard Class

                1st -  28.658 Smart, Moureaux       1st-  28.081 Trick, Nys

                7th-  30.887 Mearle, Simon            19th-  30.082 Snap, Bills

                26th-  32.788 Vixen, Kletke           27th-  32.077 Bandit, Gesquiere

                In the 24" Standard Class             In the 26" Standard Class

                1st-  30.353 Echo, Benacquisto      1st-  28.835 Ninja, Leslie

                5th-  32.301 Gumbo, Zurborg        19th-  30.828 Tex, Savkov

                14th-  34.521 Moquah, Smith        26th- 33.09  Sport, Steinbach

In the 8", 12", 16", and 24" classes those two seconds takes a dog from the teens or twenties up into the top ten dogs in the class. The 20" and 26" classes had much closer times, even several dogs just hundredths apart, but the two seconds could still move a dog from the high teens/twenties into the top ten spots. Kind of crazy considering all the places on a course that any given team can gain back a few tenths of a second. Obstacle performance, tightening down turns, improving information flow, etc. 

But timing splits and improving speed on different pieces of equipment are not about who you can beat, at least not for me. I focus my goals on personal improvement, but I always like using other teams as research and as a basis for new goals in YPS, times and equipment performance. No where on my goal list is "Place Top Ten at Nationals", because I try really hard not to base my goals off the results of others. But I find it amazing to see how much room for improvement there is on every course. The dogs listed above are clearly some of the best in the country, and within those rankings are so many tenths and hundredths of seconds to be improved upon. Just the right amount of encouragement needed to continue working on Whimzy's skills and YPS so that we can be the best that we can be. Don't know where that puts us compared to everyone else, but I'll be happy knowing that we will be doing our personal best on every course we encounter.

*I hope everyone listed is comfortable with me using their dog/name in this post, if not please just message me on Facebook/Comment below and I will remove your name asap. Thanks for reading everyone!