Chasing the Top 200

Thousands of dogs compete in agility; thousands of others have competed since it was introduced to the U.S. in the late 1980s. USDAA, the first agility organization in the States, tracks the top 200 lifetime qualifying-score earners at various times. I believe that they give an official award to any dog in that list at the end of each year. Last year, the cut-off to make it into the top 200 was 89 and Jake had 86, putting him only 6 dogs out of the top 200.

I just checked the USDAA web site, and they've got top-200 totals as of Feb 18. Takes 93 Qs at the moment to get into the top 200. They have individual counts as of Jan 29; they list Jake with 89 Qs as of that date. Since Jan 29 (including this last weekend), Jake has earned 5 more Qs. That should push him into that group, at least briefly! But of course other people have probably been earning Qs, too--hate when that happens.

The other problem is that USDAA lists 2 more Masters Std, 1 more Masters Snooker, and 1 fewer P3 Standard legs than I've got. I've sent them email asking how I can reconcile the lists.

Anyway, argh, I'd love to be up there, but I don't know that I can stay there even if we pick up a bunch more at Madera, because I don't go to all those SoCal shows and all. And I keep saying--Jake might need to retire at any time, at which point he'll just fall by the wayside.

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