A tricolor white, black and umber Shetland sheepdog sits eagerly before an agility course, looking intently at her handler, waiting for a cue. Not even half a second after her handler utters “go,” she starts sprinting.
Barking, she races over the first ramp, makes a sharp right and clears a 16-inch jump as her handler jogs throughout the middle of the ring, giving cues with body language.
Dog agility looks similar to equestrian jumping but includes various other agility obstacles.
Dog and handler pairs ran in over 900 agility trials August 16 through18 during the McKenzie Cascade Dog Fanciers at Lane Events Center. Pairs came from as far as Alaska to compete to qualify for the American Kennel Club’s national agility competitions, says the MCDF trial chair Debbie Petersen.
“It’s really the most fun you can have with your dog,” Petersen says. “I mean, as long as you’re not so serious about it that you get upset about it, it’s really fun.”
Petersen has been organizing agility trials for 25 years. She has two dogs, a Plott hound and a Dutch shepherd, both of which are two uncommon breeds in agility, she says. Because there are so few of them, her Plott hound is number one in the country for her breed, Peterson says.
Peterson says many of the people involved in dog agility are retired women.
“Most of it is all of us that want to just get out and move around and do things with our dog,” she says, “but it’s pretty much been a women’s game, because we run with joy.”
It takes a year-and-a-half or two years of training before a dog is ready to compete in agility trials, Petersen says. Dogs can’t participate in AKC agility trials until they are at least 15 months old, and they must be registered with the AKC, according to its agility regulation handbook.
The AKC, a nonprofit organization founded in 1884 that is committed to advancing the sport of purebred dogs and breeding for type and function, tracks competing dogs’ wins, losses and competition levels. Other organizations, like the North American Dog Agility Council, do not require the dogs to be registered purebreds.
Tori Hancock lives in Medford and brought her border collies Zoe, Tavi and Scotty to Eugene for the August agility trials. Zoe is 13-years-old and ran her last competitive trial in July.
“She had a retirement party with a cake and everything,” Hancock says.
Zoe still runs trials “for exhibition only,” meaning she does the same course as other dogs but isn’t judged on her performance.
Handlers may also choose for their dog to run agility trials FEO if they need experience being around the commotion of an agility event while learning to stay focused on their handler, Petersen says.
Hancock says she began practicing agility with her previous Border Collie, Olivia, who needed a lot of stimulation.
“I never intended to do any competition, and then it just got into that,” Hancock says.
The AKC hosts two national agility championships each year: the AKC Agility Invitational for the top five dogs of each breed in each class and the AKC National Agility Championship. Both events are typically hosted in a southern state. This year the invitational is in Orlando, Florida, in December.
In order to qualify for the national championship, a dog must complete two different types of trials with no mistakes and gather enough speed points by finishing their trials faster than the allotted time, Petersen says.
Zoe has been to nationals six times and placed eighth out of about 450 dogs in her height category in 2019, Hancock says.
“She was really agile in her younger days,” Hancock says. “She’s super fast, and she could turn on a dime.”
Tavi and Scotty, Hancock’s 7- and 6-year-old border collies, compete in agility trials as well, Hancock says.
“I’m not competitive myself, but Zoe was competitive,” Hancock says, “Tavi and Scotty, they’re just kind of clowns, but it’s so fun.”