Of winning and losing, triumphs and defeats

Zipper with his UKC Agility High In Trial winnings

I'm in the midst of a discussion on the Rally-Obed yahoogroup, and it's brought up some thoughts I want to share about what it means to do dogsport, on newbies and experience, on winning and losing and the effort therein.

This particular discussion is about the A versus the B classes. The A classes, such as Novice A, are for people who have never put an AKC obedience or rally title on a dog. The B classes are for people who have either put a title on a dog or the dog is co-owned by a person who has titled the dog. And at the moment we're getting a lot of cries of "unfair" because sometimes true newbies ended up being slotted up against much more experienced teams.

Let's say you buy a dog from a breeder who does obedience, and you buy on a co-ownership (both your name and the breeder's name are on the registration papers). You've never even owned a dog before and have certainly never trained one. Yet when you do train your dog and enter a show, you will have to enter the "B" classes. As such, you may be competing against people who have showing for years and have put OTChs (Obedience Trial Championships) on their dogs. Heck, the dog you're competing against might *be* an OTCh.

In another situation, a person may have competed extensively in other venues. Let's say they have a UKC UD and an ASCA CDX but have never entered an AKC show. They will get to compete in Novice A, because the AKC doesn't recognize titles from other organizations. So even the Novice A class, meant for those new to showing dogs, may hold some teams that are very experienced.

Some people feel this is unfair. That newbies shouldn't have to compete against these more experienced teams. That it's too hard for them, and that it's demotivating for them to lose. They deserve to not have to struggle so hard to get placements and they can't possibly win against those who have titled other dogs.

My reply to that is bullhockey (well, bull-something else, but this is a family blog).

I think that kind of attitude does a disservice to everyone, but especially those new green teams. It seems to be a general thought today that everyone should win just because they enter. We strive for mediocrity because that's all we need to do. Everybody gets a gift at the kids birthday party just for coming. Why should we work hard to when we can get a title just for showing up? Lord forfend there's any sort of real competition. It's not fair that we have to be in the same ring as those really experienced teams. We'll get beaten for sure.

The truth is any worthy endeavor is one that takes effort and struggle to attain. In any dog sport, (or any sport) what you put into it is what you get out of it. If you don't want to work hard, don't know the rules and don't train your dog, you're probably going to get beaten. Sometimes you will work hard and you'll still get beaten. If you won all the time, then winning would be boring. In order for us to truly appreciate winning, we need to understand that effort must be put forth.

We should never ask others to descend to our level of mediocrity in order for us to succeed. Instead, if we want to succeed, we must rise to a level that makes that a possibility. And that means that we're going to work hard. We're going to fail along the way. We may struggle. That makes success all the sweeter.

In most of dog sport, you really don't have to beat any other team to be successful. Your ability to "win" is tied directly to the amount of work and effort you put into your team. Very few titles (the OTCh is an exception) require you to get a first or second place. Instead, you simply have to meet a minimum score and get a qualifying ribbon. Get three of those under two different judges and you get a title. You've won. If you want a class placement (first through fourth place) on top of that well, then, you have to work for it. Whether or not somebody else has a multi-titled dog and is competing against you is totally immaterial. Any person can place first in any class at any show on any day IF they put the time into making that happen.

If you don't want to work very hard to get that title? That's fine. Just know that you aren't going to get the same score as people who were willing to train. It's not a level playing field. It's never going to be a level playing field. But it doesn't matter. How you do depends entirely on YOU.

Oh and I have seen some Novice A teams get out there and kick butt. Because they worked at it. You can do it too, but if you want to be great you have to be willing to put in the time and miles to get you and your dog there.