Which are the top 10 [fill in the breed] dogs in AKC Scent Work?
One frequent question we get is “Which of your reports shows the Scent Work rankings for a particular breed?” And the only real answer to that is “what do you mean by ‘ranking’?” Because the AKC has not defined any kind of ranking schema for Scent Work, as they have done for Obedience, Rally Obedience, Agility and FastCAT. The only “ranking” the AKC has defined are the results from the AKC Master National Scent Work Championship Don’t get me wrong — achievement at the Master National is a BIG DEAL with all crowns fully-deserved. But not everyone chooses to make the journey to the event and there has only been one Championship event thus far in the seven years that the sport existed, so it seems as though there might be other, more inclusive ways, that could also be used to rank dogs in Scent Work.
Here are a few different ways to look at Scent Work Rankings.
Chronological Order
Another frequent question (certainly the one I had when we created DemoDogDatabase, the precursor to WeSmellBetter) was “who was the first” to attain a particular title or level, and that is a kind of ranking, in chronological order of achievement. To that end, we report these things in chronological order:
- First Titles – Lists dogs in order of titles and Designations earned (chronological “ranking”) (Dogs Menu)
- First Titles By Pack – Lists Pack Members in order of titles and Designations earned (chronological “ranking”) (Packs Menu)
- First Titles By Breed – Lists each dog in the Breed in order of titles and Designations earned (chronological “ranking”) (Breed Menu)
Quantity
Another way of looking at things is “who has earned the most?” The following reports address that and can be run for All Dogs, A Pack or a Breed under the appropriate menu:
- Most Titles – Lists dogs in order of the number of titles and Designations they have earned, broken out by total Element titles, total Level titles and total Designations.
- Most Qualifying Legs – Lists dogs in order of how many Qs they’ve earned, one number for all levels and includes both Odor and HD divisions.
- Most FIT* – Lists dogs in order of FIT*s earned (available under Club menu as well) Keep in mind that FIT* — “Fastest in Trial — is as calculated by us. Actual High in Trial may not have been awarded by the club, or may have been awarded to a different competitor. We calculate FIT* using the same rules as High in Trial — the dog with the least # of faults with the fastest time in all classes offered at a single level in a trial offering at least two Odor Division elements at that level.
Weighted Achievements
Desiring to add Scent Work achievements into the points systems that they use to calculate things like Versatility awards, various clubs have created their own Scent Work ranking systems. Typically, these apply weighted points values to various titles, or even to Qs. In order to support those systems, as well as to allow people to do some daydreaming about how an earned championship might work, we created the Ranking Configuration. Under the MyStuff menu, you can use the Points Ranking Configuration to create publicly-viewable or private ranking systems, starting from scratch or copying any previously-created private system or any publicly-available one. You will name your system, determine whether it is private to you or publicly-viewable and then set a points value from 0-99 for each of these possible items:
- Qualifying Runs (by level, including Detective)
- Placements, 1-4 (as awarded per the AKC Results, not calculated by us)
- Element Titles (includes HD) (by Level)
- Level Titles (by Level, including Detective)
- Element Elite Titles (includes HD) (by Level)
- Level Elite Titles (By Level)
- Fastest in Trial* (By Level, does not consider # of elements included)
- Combined Fastest in Trial* (By Level, does not consider # of elements included)
- Super Elite*
- Super HD Elite*
- Super Combined Elite*
- Super Elite Detective*
- Super HD Elite Detective*
- Super Combined Elite Detective*
Once you have created a Ranking System, you (or anyone else, if the system is Public) can run the Points Ranking Report under the Dogs (all dogs), Packs or Breed Menus. You’ll select the Ranking system to use, the year, and how many dogs to report (250-2500).
You can always see the weighted points awarded by a system for each item in the shaded line that appears at the top of the table on the report, and the system that was used will be shown in the report title.
Run Time Ranking Report
The Staffordshire Terrier Club of America (STCA, the AKC Parent Club for that breed) has created a ranking system that has some similarities to FastCAT in that the dog must have earned at least 3 Qualifying scores at a Level. For Scent Work, they also must have earned a Q in at least 3 different elements in the Level in order to be ranked. At that point, all their scores for all Elements in that Level are averaged together and then dogs are listed in order by fastest time per level. This took some coding and so wasn’t easily Configurable, although Doug has made it so you can identify the minimum number of Elements in the Level and number of qualifying scores. This is available on the Dogs, Breeds and Packs menu as the Run Time Ranking Report, and we want to thank STCA for providing us with the details of their system.
What else is possible?
How else could you possibly look at Rankings when it comes to Scent Work? It’s not an easy question because I think we all can agree that no two dogs ever run the same search; the AKC does award placements based on faults and time, however, which would seem to indicate they feel there is some basis for comparison. There has been a very disturbing allegation that program administrators are opposed to the development of a “calculated championship” because they do not feel rigor is suitably comparable across the United States. If that were the case, however, surely the first things you would do would be to revamp Judges Education, provide more/better guidance (perhaps in the form of the Scent Work Trial Manual — Coming Soon!?) for clubs, and assign more Field Representatives for the sport and ensure they are attending events throughout the country? Since none of those things are happening, the allegation must surely be false.
“Calculated Championships,” ones earned over time as opposed to at a single event like the AKC Master National Scent Work Championship, are offered in many AKC sports. This 2024 blog post on my personal platform describes those. If we were to look at something for Scent Work, I strongly believe it should be retroactive, and thus would need to use the data that the AKC already has. I don’t know what that is, but I can tell you what has been published, and give an idea how reliable that information has been.
AKC Scent Work Trial results include
- The dog’s registration number, along with breed (or All-American). Each Qualifying score also shows the first initial and last name of the owner(s); if the handler was different, that is not shown. They do not include age or whelp date. In breeds with Varieties, the Variety may or may not be indicated. The dog’s color, sex, breeder and sire and dam are not reported.
- The class in which the dog Qualified, showing the number of faults (if any) and their time. The judge, the total time allotted for the class and the number of starters for the class are also shown, but we don’t know who the starters were that didn’t qualify so cannot tabulate NQs. The placement that was awarded by the trial, 1-4, is recorded, as well. High in Trial is not reported to the AKC.
How reliable is that data? When I ask that, I’m not casting aspersions on the AKC! They do a remarkable job, especially considering how very manual much of the process appears to be — there are a LOT of opportunities to mis-key things, but, by and large, the ‘errors’ we’ve seen them rectify overwhelmingly have to do with people who entered using the registration number for the wrong dog.
Still, there have been occasions when the AKC data was suspicious, such as a long stretch of time where no faults were reported in results, not for any dog at any trial, and handlers contacted us to say our reported information with regard to faults was incorrect based on the printed results provided by the trial secretary on the day (but our reporting definitely mirrored the AKC’s “official’ reporting). And then there are occasions when something weird happened during a class (often not found until after the whole class had run, maybe the trial was over!), where the full complement of starters in the class was given a qualifying score and the maximum time (minus a second). On other occasions, a time of “0:00.00” has been recorded, and, given that we are timing to 100ths of seconds, just can’t be what actually happened. The rules for “excluded” legs [based on qualifying in a class for which the dog is not eligible (Novice A or an upper level when the dog hasn’t earned the lower level title yet) or upon the handler entering more classes at the trial than are allowed] do not seem to be applied consistently. While I’m sure other sports encounter typos and registration errors, some of these things do seem to be unique to Scent Work.
I still think there are possibilities for Scent Work that run along the lines of the Bad Dog Agility Power Rankings or the Front & Finish Delaney Obedience Rankings, possibly something that averages ratios of time with regard to 1st place time and/or time with regard to max time. We’d obviously have to throw out Qs with a zero time as well as classes where everyone got Max time but still Qd. Should faults be included? I’m thinking not..
But what are YOU thinking? Do you have a “more complex than Points Configuration handles” system in mind? Or does your club rank using information that is available but that we don’t already report for you? Let us know!