Portal:Useful stuff
From BayTeam
Welcome to the useful stuff portal
Starting point for cool agility-related stuff or general dog-related stuff that didn't fit into other places on our site
Agility useful stuff
Getting started in agility
- Member Holly Newman's list of online references for newcomers to the sport
Agility links
- Agility web links: Other agility clubs in the greater California area; Agility photographers; equipment useful to The Bay Team; maybe more.
- Karey's Calendar: Our own Karey's crib sheet of agility events within a reasonable distance of the San Francisco Bay area.
Job descriptions for trials
- For info on trial worker job descriptions and Show Committee job descriptions, see our Running a trial page.
Reading USDAA accumulator sheets
- Everyone, especially starters/novice folks, have difficulty interpreting those accumulator sheets. Here's a PDF file suitable for printing and posting at your trials alongside the accumulator sheets.
Bay Area agility sites
- Agility sites lists various sites that have been used for agility-related events, how to get there, how long it takes, what the sites are like.
Bay Team lost and found
- See lost and found for a list of items found or lost at some of our trials.
Agility title crib sheets
- Agility title abbreviations in alphabetic order to help figure out what you're seeing.
- Download member Karey Krauter's one-page crib sheet for tracking your progress towards USDAA, NADAC, and AKC titles.
- Assorted CPE titles cribsheets on the CPE web site.
- Download member Holly Newman's nifty Excel spreadsheet for USDAA titles—you fill in the dates you Qed, it calculates what titles you've earned!
- Download member Dave Connet's spiffy Windows program for managing your Qs and titles, free software!
Assorted useful agility stuff
- Portal:USDAA nationals: Lots of info about the nationals and our members there
- Agility title abbreviations
- Rules for Strategic pairs
- Rules for other (nontitling) Agility just-for-fun games
Surveys of club members
- What would make you want to work? (8/5/09)
- Do you like the summer CPE trial date & location? (8/5/2009)
- We're offering more and more events each year. Do you like Bay Team's event distribution? (7/29/09)
- Our June/Summer 2009 CPE entries are down 20% this year. How come? Why didn't you enter the summer CPE? (6/16/09)
- What features make starters/newbies want to enter an event? Here's a poll of the club on what attracts novices to agility trials. (1/9/2009)
- If the club were to host seminars, who would you like to see us bring in? Here's a poll of the club's Seminar wish list. (11/10/2008)
- While discussing the first aid kit question, the question of whether to buy an AED/Defibrillator came up. Thank you very much to Terry LeClair who made a generous donation for an AED for the Bay Team, and to Wendy Bruce for stepping up to be the club's AED czar. Here is the meat of the defibrillator discussion. (9/11/08)
- What should the club have in its event first aid kits? or, what should I have in my personal first aid kit? Here's a poll of the club on Suggested dog agility first-aid kit contents. (9/7/2008)
- When our sister clubs in Southern California were scheduling a USDAA judges and course desgn clinic a few years ago, we asked our membership how many people would be interested in going to that, and whether we should offer one in NorCal. Here are the results of this Judges Clinic poll. (2/25/08)
Equipment and things
- Member Holly Newman has done her own reviews on seat belts for your traveling doggie, sun shelters for trials, and doggie backpacks.
- Member Diane Blackman's extensive Dog Play site has a long list of links for making and buying agility equipment.
- List of Bay Teamers offering agility products or services agility equipment, agility related apparel and products.
- Holly's detailed blogs about rubberizing agility equipment:
- The rubberized category for posts will bring up all existing (current AND future) blog posts about rubberizing, in reverse chronological order. At the moment, the following are all currently existing ones in correct chronological order:
- http://blog.agilepooch.com/2010/06/12/rubberized-contacts-what-does-that-even-mean/
- http://blog.agilepooch.com/2010/06/13/rubberized-contacts-my-first-attempt/
- http://blog.agilepooch.com/2010/06/13/rubberized-contacts-lessons-learned-in-phase-1/
- http://blog.agilepooch.com/2010/07/10/rubberized-contacts-gluing-and-trimming/
- http://blog.agilepooch.com/2010/07/10/rubberized-contacts-hidden-costs/
- http://blog.agilepooch.com/2010/07/10/rubberized-contacts-revised-calculations-and-wrap-up/
Inexpensive cones for home use
Ellen asked, I just want about 10-12 inexpensive cones for home use. Can even label them myself, just writing the numbers on. Purple would be nice. Suggestions? Here are the responses:
- Several people (Carlene, Jim B, Gwen B, ...) recommended schoolmasters.com and wolverine sports--apparently they're just different names for the same company--and said that they have a variety of inexpensive cones. GwenB mentioned these as an example.
- Several people (Ann D, Robert Y, ...) suggested hardware stores such as Home Depot and Orchard Supply. Suggestions for numbering included printing your own and having them laminated, buying laminated ones, buy decals for the #s in the post box section.
- Several people suggested sporting goods stores:
- Erika M: I got my cones from a soccer supply store - I think Wolverine Sports or something like that ... It was years ago. I also got purple which meant I needed to get white numbers or they wouldn't show up!
- Tania C: Big 5...maybe $5 dollars for a set of 5 or 6.
- Jim W: I got some cones from a sporting goods store here in Santa Cruz who supplies the soccer team. I don't remember the exact cost, but I'm thinking about a buck each. They only had orange.
- Suggestions for web searches:
- Gwen B: Try a search for plastic cone on nextag. Or--These may not be perfect, but they're 10 cones for $12.
- Diane B: I think I paid $4 or $5 per for mine. But knowing that I bought them at SportsMart (now Sports Authority) I looked up sports cones: set of cones on Ebay; here's another set; Unicorn sports; schoolmasters.com.
- Creative creation of cones from other materials:
- Lorrayne B: You could grow some small pumpkins pretty cheap, but of course, that takes a while. I think that plastic funnels was a contender too, something you might use to poor oil in your car.
- Ellen F: Ah ha! How about those plastic pots of various sizes that plants come in from nurseries? If you have some just sitting in your shed, you could write or tape numbers on those, and they're free! And they stack.
- Garril P: I use Greg Larsen Sports, they sell haff(?) cones for a dollar each. GLSports. 800-950-3320. Also, Northern Tool & equipment has the 9" orange poly cones: 4 for $7, now $6.49.
Just for fun
- Most popular agility dog names
- DAM team shirts
- What classes are doubled the most often at USDAA events? Not counting standard, which is traditionally always "doubled" - offered twice in one 2-day weekend. USDAADoubleGames.pdf
- Agility-related car license plates
- Take our agility quiz(zes) (might be disabled at the moment)
- April Fools 2006 Agility News
- Click here to download a 10-second Quicktime animation of the original Bay Team logo doing agility. (Very cool! but 3.5 megabytes.) (By Corporate Images, Inc. of California)
Dog stuff not agility related
Canine medical information
NOTE: The following links are to information provided by Bay Teamers. Unless otherwise stated, these posts are not made by licensed medical care givers; always talk to your vet about suspected medical issues. This information is provided only based on personal experience with our own dogs. As this page grows, some of the topics may spin off onto separate pages.
- Xylitol Poisoning: Do you know the hazards of some sugarless products? Here's a first-hand account from Holly Newman.
- Mast Cell Tumors: Holly Newman has blogged her experience with Jasmine's recent tumor scare.
- Remington's Cancer Page: Dog cancer in general and hemangiosarcoma in particular.
- FYI, some Bay Teamers who have lost dogs to hemangiosarcoma: Diane Blackman, Ron and Anne Etherton, Ellen Finch, Nan Keder, Ken and Bobbie Navarre, Cheri and Mike Scannell, Donna Sprouse, Janet Massolo, (nonmember but FOBT) Pat White.
Bay Area off leash hiking resources
Too much fun
- Bay Team gift exchange rules for White Elephant Gift Exchange; a popular event at our annual holiday party.
Animated GIF credits:
- Dog running through tunnel from Fuzzy Faces' Free Doggy Graphics
- Cartoon agility animation courtesy of Brandy's website service and Dog Agility K9 Kartoons
