Porter Is In The Power 60!

 

 

I found out Friday that Porter is in the Preferred Power 60! This is kind of a big deal  :)  Or at least it is to me!

He is number 11 in the 4" rankings - the only Cardigan on either list!

Porter at the 2013 AKC Nationals - he looks fast in this photo  :)

So what is the Power 60 list? You can click on the link for all the details, but in a nutshell:

• The list recognizes the fastest 60 dogs in AKC agility running at the Masters level
• It uses average yards per second, rather than QQ's or speed points
• It does not take into consideration qualifying rate
• Ranked dogs must have at least 5 qualifying runs in both Standard & JWW
• The formula for the actual score can be found here (it's complicated...)

I was shocked when I saw the list. While I knew Porter was "fast," I had no idea just how fast he was relative to other dogs. Especially nation-wide.

2013 was an interesting year for us anyway. He was re-measured in May, which put him into the 4" division (he had already been running in 8" Preferred). I knew this made him faster since his hang-time over jumps was greatly reduced!

I also lost 60 pounds this year, which in turn made me faster. But it also made him appear slower, at least to me  :)  I suddenly found myself so far ahead on course and I thought he was really showing his age & slowing down... Duh. Thank you to my friends for pointing that one out!

I dug up some old videos so I could compare how we've changed over the years  :)  I knew there was a reason I uploaded these, long before I had a blog...

One of his first Excellent runs. He started out at 12"

Another Excellent Level run at 12"

 

 

One of his first Excellent runs at 8" Preferred. We had to work our way back up from Novice.

 

 

And a fairly recent run at 4" Preferred. Maybe my better handling has helped his speed, too  :)