"sionnach" wrote:


Here's the really scary part: He ran 7.23 YPS *including the reset* which
took 4-6 seconds... so how fast was he *actually* going?? =:O
(Wasn't timer error either - we had electronic timing.)

To explain that bit of jargon for the non-agility people:
YPS stands for "yards per second", and is a measurement of the dog's speed,
just like MPH (miles per hour) for cars.
The course, as designed to be run, is a certain number of yards long.
There's a time limit for completion of the course, which is calculated based
on the course yardage, what obstacles are on the course, the size of the
dogs (smaller dogs get more time), age of the dogs (dogs over 7 get 10% more
time), and what level the dogs are competing at (dogs at lower levels are
given more time).

When I say Cenau was "29 seconds under time", I mean that he finished the
course approximately 29 seconds under the time limit for his level and jump
height - on that particular Novice course, the small dogs needed to complete
the course in 50.24 seconds or less, and Cenau ran it in 21.73 seconds.
An individual dog's YPS is calculated by dividing the yardage by the
dog's time.

Thing is, if the dog deviates from the course at all - as Cenau did when
he ran past the jump, circled around and came back - it's actually running
more yardage, which means the dog's actual YPS is *higher* than the scoring
program records.

Cenau's official YPS, 7.23 YPS, converts to 14.77 miles per hour - over
jumps as high as his withers. But since he added considerable yardage by
shooting past a jump and circling back, and slowed down to a near stop for a
second or so, his actual speed over the rest of the course was considerably
higher than that. Like I said - HOLY COW!