Eventing question, please look inside.

Melrose437 · August 2014

Alright so I've never really paid attention to this but maybe you guys have? Here's a situation to understand my question better: Let's say I have two dogs for eventing in the same event(let's say field retrieve), they have the same stats( same litter) I trained one to 6 years of age let's say so the dog has aggression capped and higher groomed stats then it's sibling who was only trained to the minimum stat max skills at 3 years of age. Would the first sibling do better than it's sibling since the stats outside the parenthesis are higher? My question is to know if training an eventing dog to the minimum is better for it's eventing career or is it best to train as much as you can to event the dog for less years but get more winnings? Sorry if it sounds confusing, I just know scoring is based on the stats in the parenthesis right? But also things like aggro capped and high a/c is considered in the scoring for certain events.

Alabama · August 2014

If a dog's trained/actual stats, the numbers outside the parenthesis, aren't as high as the competitions' stats in the important areas, it won't win. In Field Retrieve, aggression doesn't matter, so it won't matter whether it's maxed. The numbers inside the parenthesis do matter somewhat in some events, however, not as much as the numbers outside the parenthesis. I think starting younger can work in some events, it really depends on what stats are needed for the event. In some events starting younger won't help at all because you'll spend the early years losing a lot of events, so while it may seem the dog has a longer eventing career, actually winning might not be improved. Starting younger may help earn more points toward highest dog list, but only if the dog doesn't start out coming in last place all the time. Hope that helps

Para Darkwater · August 2014

This is just my preference but I like to start my dogs eventing as young as possible for a few reasons. First of all I like to see which events my dogs will do well in and during the testing phase to me it eats up valuable time in that they may or may not do well in the events they're place them in. I find this epically true as of late as I've bred many dogs for set events only to find they bomb and thus I have to try them in others and readjust my line up. That being said I tend to have a "base" training for my sporting, working, and show dogs. I'll usually skill & stat max with aggro cap for my sporting dogs, a skill & stat max with lowered aggro (around 50-60) for my working and show dogs. There's a few expectations in that if I know the dog will for sure be used in an event that needs higher loyalty I may have them groomed longer or even cap loyalty. Another reason I like to start young is that once you find the event or events the dog does well in you're left with longer to event them in those events. However, like Bama said I don't think this works for all events or dogs because of the difference in scoring and stats needed and so on and so forth. So it can be touch an go really.Just my two cents on the question, hope it helps in some way

MrClean · August 2014

I have actually done a little bit of experimentation with this... From what I've found, it is usually best to start young. And if you're ultimate intention is, for example, to event a female dog to National and then breed it, taking 7+ years to loyalty cap may just make that impossible. For events like herding, if you have a dog with super high natural stats you could honestly just skill max, and stat max as you go. The difference between the outside stats being 160 or 200 won't keep your dog from winning. I have noticed without a doubt that capping loyalty does affect events that judge loyalty, but I've gotten the same effect from grooming loyalty up to about 400 too. Same with events that judge aggro. You kinda have to remember that each thing only factors in by a percentage (whatever those percentages are, the event guide is clearly off since they don't add up to 100). So the actual difference that you'll make by grooming your dog's friendly (for example) up from 203 to 211 is pretty small, all things considered. My sporting dogs usually have pretty high natural aggression, so I usually just skill & stat max them with RH and start them out from there. I can RH them each turn for the first while of their event career to get them the rest of the way capped. With my working dogs I skill & stat max and then groom until loyalty is over 300 and aggro is under 60, then groom x2 FP x2 each turn while eventing. They do well, and they all start out between 2 and 3 yrs which leaves plenty of time. And by the time they hit Regional they're all usually aggro capped and have loyalty good and high.

Alabama · August 2014

bryson wrote:

The difference between the outside stats being 160 or 200 won't keep your dog from winning.

It should matter, depending on which stat is being judged. If the stat isn't listed, it's not important and it won't matter if it's 160 or 200. Some of the events are not working correctly. Falling into the idea that the key stats for an event don't matter might be setting yourself up for a fall in Beta where events should be working correctly.

bryson wrote:

You kinda have to remember that each thing only factors in by a percentage (whatever those percentages are, the event guide is clearly off since they don't add up to 100). So the actual difference that you'll make by grooming your dog's friendly (for example) up from 203 to 211 is pretty small, all things considered.

Yeah, the percentages aren't an actual representation of how the event scores, it's more representative of the weight each carries. If friendly is listed at 20% and intel at 10%, it just means friendly is twice as important than intel. If friendly is weighted at 20% and everything else is less, 203 to 211 will make a difference, if the other dogs' stats are similar and the event is scoring correctly. If friendly is weighted at 5% and there are 4 other stats that are more important, 203 to 211 might not mean much. It really does depend on the event, the competition and in the current game, if things are scoring right.

Frostbight8 · August 2014

I'll start my sporting dogs at whatever age they come to me as, usually with minimal training. I'm not going to lie, the dogs on my sporting team have mediocre stats. I just rescue them and event them as is. When buying I look for A/C at or above 300, high aggression and decent loyalty, nothing below 200 is usually fine. The results these dogs return are so-so, most have an okay win record and a few have even hit the Top Dogs board. However, my opinion on working dogs is different. I've always sworn by a loyalty cap, but I should also add that in a world where events score correctly, a 70+ WPS% is my dream. I'd do anything to breed/event a dog who ends up with a WPS% like that. Therefore, burning a good 7 years of my dog's life is fine by me. Most of my working dogs have always ended their careers in the low end of national level. I guess it really depends on your opinion and the way you'd determine whether or not a dog is a good show dog.

MrClean · August 2014

Alabama wrote:

bryson wrote:

The difference between the outside stats being 160 or 200 won't keep your dog from winning.

 It should matter, depending on which stat is being judged. If the stat isn't listed, it's not important and it won't matter if it's 160 or 200. Some of the events are not working correctly. Falling into the idea that the key stats for an event don't matter might be setting yourself up for a fall in Beta where events should be working correctly.

I'm sure it probably should matter, but in my experience it doesn't. I might not have made it clear but I was only referring to those events that judge natural stats (like herding...or racing, weight pulling, whatever). I started my high endy/intel herding Borders all out with just skill maxes. They did great. The thing is if the natural stat is that high by the time you skill max the outside stat will be high enough that it's not necessary to waste an extra year or two on grooming. I'm not saying to ignore stats, I'm just saying I haven't found any difference *For those events*. Speaking of Beta I have a question about Beta events, on my mind at the moment is cattle herding. Is it going to be changed so that aggression is counted positively? I guess my real question is, which is incorrect: event judging or the scoring guide? I believe I may have conveyed the wrong message. I'm not saying stats don't matter, or that stats aren't judged, or that training won't make a difference. I was only giving my insight on how things have actually worked for me in the VP event world, beyond the realm of theoretical numbers and calculations. To answer the question about how to get the most out of a dog's event career, I've done it both ways (trained long to get stats high vs bare minimum for long career span) and the bare minimum approach is, in my opinion, the way to go in most cases. There are exceptions of course, like with heavy loyalty events etc. And then you have mushing, where the stats seem to matter less than breed group... On a side note... I too would absolutely love to produce a dog with 70+% wps... maybe one day :-)

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