A Primer on Skyhoundz Freestyle Judging Criteria
by Jud G. Maximus

Okay, so canine disc competition is your new favorite activity. And, imagine that, your dog digs it too. To add to your growing karma cache, a Hyperflite Skyhoundz competition is coming to a park near you. The plan is for you and your dog “JJ” (short for Jumping Jehosaphats) to show up, win everything and carry home all your awards in the wheelbarrow that you happened to bring with you…just in case. And you wouldn’t be the first person to think, based on your backyard exploits, that competition success is a foregone conclusion.

Well, you may want to reduce your turbines to idle thrust for a few minutes and pay heed to the words that follow. It just might be that the judges at the competition will be looking for something that you weren’t expecting. So kick back with a cold Cactus Cooler (and a Milkbone for JJ) and let these words soak in.

It’s not rocket science, but every contest organizer has different rules and guidelines that you must follow to have any chance at success. To gain insight into the manner in which Skyhoundz judges evaluate freestyle performances at Skyhoundz Regional and World Championship events it is useful to first review the Skyhoundz Guidelines. These Guidelines set forth the core standards or “framework” that Skyhoundz judges employ to score freestyle routines and consequently compare and contrast the performances of competing teams.

Under the Skyhoundz PAWS™ scoring system, judges will evaluate each team's ability to cleanly execute a challenging, varied, innovative and exciting routine within the time allotted. The PAWS scoring system requires judges to evaluate teams in four distinct categories. These categories are Presentation, Athleticism, Wow! Factor and Success. Each category is worth between 1 and 10 points. The PAWS scoring system is as follows:

Presentation The team’s presentation of a crowd-pleasing routine with exciting choreography, continuous flow, good disc management and smooth transitions.

Athleticism A demonstration of intensity and athleticism in completing catches, tricks or maneuvers together with an evaluation of the dog's speed, quickness, control, and leaping ability relative to its size.

Wow!Factor A team’s ability to successfully complete challenging tricks, sequences, throws and moves, including catches by the canine team member of throws with varied spins or releases. Also, the presentation of completely new moves, or a novel or unique presentation of a previously performed move, will result in higher scores in this category.

Success The successful execution of a planned routine with specific consideration given for the difficulty of the throws/catches and tricks. A team’s overall success score will affect, positively or negatively, the scores in all PAWS categories. In this category, it is entirely possible for a team with a few misses to score higher than a team with no misses if the team having the misses completes a more difficult routine.

In order for a trick to be scored in a Skyhoundz competition, it must begin or end with the disc in flight. In other words, every trick must somehow involve interaction between a thrower and a canine with a throw occurring either at the beginning or conclusion of the interaction between the thrower and canine. If a thrower does a freestyle move that does not involve the canine, it does not get scored. Take juggling for example. If a thrower juggles discs and then stops, or moves on to the next trick, the juggling will not get scored. If, however, a throw is made to the canine contemporaneously with the juggling, the trick will be scored. It is worth emphasizing that “takes” are never scored. A “take” occurs when a dog “takes” a disc out of a thrower’s hand, mouth or off of a thrower’s body. Remember, to be scored the trick must begin or end with the disc in flight. It does not have to fly far, or even spin for that matter, but it must be airborne. Roller throws are the only exception to this rule.

Of the four PAWS scoring categories mentioned previously, the last two, Wow! Factor and Success probably have the greatest impact on a competitor’s overall score. They also provide the most obvious means of distinguishing one competing team from another. Further, the failure of a competing team to score highly in Wow! Factor or Success will likely impact the team’s scores in the other categories. Here is how this can happen. Take, for example, the Athleticism category. As a judge, I have seen many incredibly athletic canines fail to score well in Athleticism because they simply did not catch discs consistently or because the thrower failed to make good throws or sufficiently challenge the dog. The Athleticism score is not based on one or two incredibly athletic catches in a routine replete with numerous misses. Instead, it is based on a Judge’s overall impression of a team’s ability to channel the athleticism of a canine in a manner that results in the successful completion of attempted athletic tricks and/or catches. In other words, you must do well in the Success category to achieve high scores in other categories. It is worth emphasizing that you won’t receive credit for attempted tricks. A trick must be accomplished successfully in order for the trick to have a positive impact on a team’s score.

Wow! Factor is a key category because, much like a difficulty multiplier in competitive diving, the category also impacts the overall score. If two competitors have perfect routines, the competitor with a more difficult and innovative routine will score higher in Wow Factor! and most likely in other categories as well. While we are discussing Wow! Factor I want to take a moment to also address the issue of vaulting in competition. With respect to vaulting, the Skyhoundz Guidelines read, in pertinent part, as follows:

Since the welfare of competing canines is of great concern to everyone, vaults, utilizing the trainer's body as a launch pad, should be minimized or excluded from routines altogether. If attempted, vaults should be performed in a controlled and safe manner. Excessive height, or frequent repetitions of vaults, will not increase the likelihood of a higher score.

Vaulting or other tricks in which a canine uses a portion of a thrower’s body as a launch pad can cause the canine to reach spectacular heights and/or travel great distances across the ground. These tricks can be exciting and crowd pleasing. In fact, there is a perception held by some competitors that you must vault your canine in order to be successful in competition. This is completely false. Excessive or repetitive vaulting can work against you because, from a judging perspective, vaulting is viewed as not having a particularly high degree of difficulty relative to a host of other more difficult maneuvers that an innovative team could attempt.

Another popular misconception is that high vaulting dogs receive higher Athleticism scores. In reality, a team’s Athleticism score is determined by a canine’s speed, quickness and leaping ability…but only in relation to the quality of jumps that are commenced from the ground. Repetitive vaulting takes up time and keeps a team from performing more innovative and difficult tricks. If you perform vaults in a Skyhoundz competition, you may impress the crowds, but there are, arguably, many better ways to impress the judges.

There is always an element of subjectivity in any scoring system. In recent years, a number of elaborate and sometimes confusing scoring systems have evolved in an attempt to take the subjectivity out of judging a canine disc team. However, it can be argued that when two or more teams perform the same trick or throw, there are always quantifiable differences between the performances, even if each of the teams performs the same trick successfully. In our view, this qualitative difference cannot and should not be reduced to an objective standard. The rules and scoring system of the Skyhoundz Championships are designed to encourage innovative, exciting and entertaining routines. Skyhoundz Competitions themselves provide ideal venues in which to showcase talented canine athletes.

As always, Skyhoundz judges invite questions at Skyhoundz events. If you want to improve your scores, judges are always happy to make suggestions.

To gain the maximum benefit from your conversation with a judge, be sure to approach the judge in a non-confrontational manner even if you disagree with the scores that you received. Once you understand the rationale for a judge’s scores and see, through the judge’s eyes, how your performance was evaluated relative to the other competitors in the competition, you will be equipped with the knowledge necessary to score even better in future competitions.

To conclude, it is important to remember that no matter how you score, competing in a Skyhoundz Championship event will always be serious fun for your dog. And, if you pay heed to these words, and remember to have a little fun yourself, you just might need that wheelbarrow after all.