Ultimate Dog Champion 2009

We are starting the Ultimate Dog Champion chase for 2009. The Ultimate Dog will have to be able to compete in 3 of the 4 dog sports that we have at UAD. Order of finish in these events are important. Each division will have an Ultimate Dog Champion except Novice. more to come on this later!

Can we try "fetch it" at the Atlanta event? Ev is a possibility, but "catch it' will never happen

Yes Fetch It will be in Atlanta!

Interesting, we will be watching for more details.

If I understand this correctly there will be an ultimate dog champion crowned in each division once during the 2009 year. And the dog will have their "scores" compiled some way through out the year in the 3 of 4 events that UAD holds and this will detirmine the "winner" of the title?

This sounds pretty cool.

What a fun this will be!

Interesting...

So Molly could compete in Catch it, Fetch It and U Air and Rebel could jump in Fetch it, Ult Air and Ult Vertical.

Should be fun !!

WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I LOVE THIS!!!!! Meadow is in for Ultimate Air, UV and Catch it.

Way to shake things up Milt and give us something new to work for.

Shari,

I'm sure Meadow will do well !!

We will have to work on Rebel's Ultimate Air. Maybe if he figures it out he will do Catch It !! also but right now he's just doing place and send.

Last time I saw Rebel he was still so little. I can't wait to see him all grown up

Great idea. I'm curious as to how it will work for the dogs who do all four sports... does the handler just individually select three of the four to count?

Sheri...you won't recognize "little" Rebel !! I have been slacking on the pictures, but will try to get one.

Kel...good question. I would guess you can pick the 3 events you want ?? Sounds like a good project for the "down" season.

I'm also wondering, if you have dogs at the top of their 3 events but they are 3 different events then how do you choose a winner i.e. one dog ranking at the top does fetch it, uv and air vs. a dog that does air, uv, catch it or a dog that does fetch it, catch it, and uv.

I'm guessing that a lot of it has to do with the placements a dog gets each time they compete (rather than overall rankings) in each of the three events. Maybe it'll be so many points for 1st, so many for 2nd, and so on. Or maybe you get a point for each dog you beat in your division each time you compete.

I'd personally like to see points based on distances/heights, like how the Ch/GrCh pts are calculated... but Milt's hint makes me think it will be something more along the lines of pts dependent upon placement or number of dogs beat, instead. But who knows?

It may, however, be more like I think you're getting at... and dependent on rankings (if I'm interpreting your post right)... but Milt's choice of term, "placement", makes me think otherwise. For any ties, maybe those doing four events would get bonus pts to break the tie? Beats me. Lol.

Of course, it's all just guesses from this end.

Milt,

Will there be an additional fee to participate in the Ultimate Dog Championship chase ??

the boys say bring on al 4, of corse i have to remind mavrick that it requirs actually jumping outside of practice

As I sit here and work on the Ultimate Dog scoring system I want to make it fair for all of the dogs. If anyone has any more suggestions please post them here.

What if the handler picks what 3 events to score before the show on the registration page even if there dog does all 4 events. Then do a point system similiar to 1st place gets 5 points for an event 2nd gets 4 ect ect and at the end of the year the top 5 dogs that can make it to the event compete for there division at the air games at the end of the season where the handler again picks which 3 events they want to be scored on.
Any way it is done it sounds like a pretty cool idea.

Milt wrote:As I sit here and work on the Ultimate Dog scoring system I want to make it fair for all of the dogs. If anyone has any more suggestions please post them here.

Throw in some hog baying for the catahoula's

Milt,

I think there are two ways you can approach it.

One is use the dogs overall rank in that event and the dog with the best average ranking wins.

Another way would be to come up with some weighted system to assign points for each event.

I think keeping it simple is a good idea.

Simple is good! How's the weather down there Marty!

I am not sure if points for each place would work well or not as the small distance dogs who still do UV and Fetch It and such may not place in those events. Maybe do a point system for each foot obtained or each inch etc. for UV. Then the dog in each division with the most points is considered the Champion???

Keep us posted on how things work out. If you need any help feel free to ask I would be happy to help.

I think going by feet or inches is a good idea... but may also be more complicated or require more work in the long run. To simplify that method though, you could just go with their top jump in each of the three areas... and assign points based on distances and/or rank.

Going by rankings alone may be easier.

Placements I think wouldn't require much work... but I don't think it is the fairest way to go, either... unless you award points based on number of dogs beat (rather than a set number for each place). For example, sometimes there are only a few dogs in your division (or only a few in UV or CI), so a first place out of one or two doesn't necessarily compare to a first place out of several more. If distances stay very consistent, than sure... but if you're basing it off placements alone, I would go by a point per dog beaten in your division system.

Something that might make it really interesting is to tabulate the top three or five dogs and then do a "jump off" at UAG... with the scores they earn for each of their respective three events counting towards the final ranking. You could run this separate, or just use their normal jumps during pre-Q rounds to save some time. If you were to go that route, the dogs who can't make as many events but have a lot of ability would still have a shot at the #1 spot. However, you're still awarding those who attend and support UAD regularly enough to earn points to stand within the top 3/5... as they would need to have one of those top spots already in order to qualify.

I like the idea of assigning points per dog beat... since that gives even the dogs who don't always make UA finals (Senior division, for example) a shot at it.

Also, if any help is needed in calculating and/or maintaining point counts, I'd be happy to help do so.

I thought the whole point of the Ultimate dog was to have it accumulate over the course of the year thereby making that dog the ultimate dog based on the year's performance and not just one final event. Isn't that what UAG is for? Having a jump off at UAG wouldn't be much different than UAG. A dog having a good weekend at UAG won't necessarily reflect all the jumping throughout the year. I thought the Ultimate Dog title would reflect the years performance in 3 out of 4 of the different events competed in. I like a point system accumulated, or tabulated, based on the amount of jumps and distances per competition throughout the year. It seems that would be fair.

It seems like the Ultimate dog should be able to show consistency in all three of it's respective events. IMHO

What if you and your dog enjoy competing in ultimate air only? Can you still earn awards and titles or do you have to compete in 3 of the 4 events to earn awards? I can see for some teams this new way of competing would be fun but I enjoy having my dogs excel in distance jumping only. This all seems pretty confusing to me. I was attracted to ultimate air dogs because it was exciting and fun to see how far dogs can jump for distance and it was basically simple and really fun. Now it seems to be getting very complicated.