The World Dog Agility Championships

466 – The Annual, 2010-11

by Robert H. McKowen

The best overall description of the 15th World Agility Championships in Reiden, Germany, October 1-3 is: “A whole lot of tail wagging going on.” Agility is sheer joy for the dogs and nowhere is it on display more than the World Championships.

Competition from 35 countries from Japan, to South Africa, to the USA, and Europe was fierce. The AKC Team representing the USA was well-prepared but so were most of the other countries and a slight mishap here and there could be costly.

The dogs tried their best, and while their handlers spoke many different languages, the dogs spoke one international language: WOOF. The majority of the winning dogs were Border Collies and Shetland Sheepdogs. There was a great variety of dogs each displaying their breed characteristics. Some of the dogs were new to me and I couldn’t pronounce or spell their names, but they were beautiful and talented performers.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, the breed chracteristics were the same regardless of whether the dogs came from different countries. The terriers continue to be a vocal breed, so too the poodles. The Jack Russells move with great speed and jumping ability while the Border Collies are mostly silent with full attention to their handlers while running with blazing speed and athleticism. Sometimes they know where to make the jumps and turns more than their handlers.

Reiden is located in central Bavaria between Nuremburg and Regensburg and the majority of maps do not show it or how to get there. Rather than following road numbers, you go from town to town and with great luck you eventually see a road sign that says Reiden. I rented a car at the Munich airport and headed north on the A9 Autobahn toward Nuremberg. If you like to travel 100 miles an hour then the Autobahn is for you, but its hairy and you have to go fast to keep from getting run over. At about 60 miles north you turn east into countryside on narrow, curving roads hoping you will connect with the right villages and eventually wind up at your destination. It was a great relief to see the Reiden sign appear suddenly in front of us.

A picturesque village with multi-colored houses surrounded by flowers and vines, and a church with a needle-like steeple in the center, Reiden sits in a valley beside a clear-flowing stream surrounded by rolling hills in the early flush of Fall.

It comes almost as a shock to find a large modern horse show arena with hard-packed earth surface within walking distance of the first-class Wald Hotel at the top of the hill where several teams stayed. Many people camped in the hundreds of small motorhomes that created instant villages adjacent to the arena and the hotel.

Just making it to the World was a thrill in itself and earning a high place was icing on the cake.

“We were as well-prepared as we have ever been and so were many of the other teams,” said Andy Hartman, AKC’s Director of Agility and team manager. “I was proud of our team. Places were measured in fractions of seconds or a fault but that’s Agility. We did our best.”

The AKC team’s highest placement was a second by new team member John Nys of Pascoag, RI with Shetland Sheepdog Rush in the Individual Medium Class. Early faults and wrong coarses on the first day matched the gloomy overcast weather outside. But as the competition continued on the second day, things got better and Nys and Rush gave the USA a top score in the Jumpers Class. On the final day, Sunday, the sun came out to brighten the beautiful countryside and Nys and Rush’s excellent run in the Agility Class spelled a second place in the combined scores. In earning second they defeated 79 other individual teams of the finest dogs in the world.

First place was won by Natasha Wise of Great Britain with two spectacular runs required to go ahead of Rush. It was interesting to see Great Britain finish so high throughout the competion since the British rabies quarantine prevented them from entering the World until three years ago even though the Brits invented agility.

Rush’s second place was almost like a fairytale come true. The beautiful five year-old Sheltie is co-owned by Paulette Swartzendruber from south of Boston. Paulette was on the World team last year. She and Nys trained together until earlier this year when she became ill with cancer. Rather than taking Rush out of competition, Paulette turned him over to Nys as a co-partner.

A regional manager for FedEx in Rhode Island, Nys had an athletic background. He used to go to horse shows and would take his dog along. That’s how he got involved with agility. He said, “I never expected the excitement of the World until I was out there, and Wow!

“This was a real thrill,” Nys added. “We finished second in the USA National Agility Championships earlier this year but I never expected this.” And to make the story complete, Swartzendruber was on hand to cheer for Rush and John.

Each team and individual has two runs: one in jumping and one in agility. The combined scores of the two runs determines the placements. The Jumping, as its name implies, consists mostly of jumps. The Agility course consists of a variety of obstacles such as an a-frame, seesaw, tunnel and other strategically placed obstacles around the course. There is team and individual competition for small, medium and large dogs.

The USA team had a total of 17 placements in the top 10 for teams and individuals in single and combined runs. In addition to Nys’s 2nd place combined, there was one sixth place in individual combined large and two seventh places in combined large and medium teams.

In single course runs, the USA had fives seconds, three thirds, two fourths, one fifth, three sevenths, one eighth and one tenth.

The next highest placement behind Nys and Rush was a sixth in combined individual large by Daisy Peel of Boney Lake, WA and her Border Collie Solar. Peel and Solar had a remarkable comeback from 31st in Jumping to fourth in Agility for a combined sixth place.

Diane Goodspeed of Hatchettstown, NJ, had two fast, clean runs to finish 15th with her Sheltie Demon, and Karen Holik of North Port, FL, a veteran member of the team, finished 34th by defeating 46 other individuals with her Sheltie Sizzle.

The USA Medium team of Holik, Nys and Maureen Waldron of Norristown, PA, with their Shetland Sheepdog Mickle finished seventh in team competition. First went to an outstanding Belgian team.

The USA Small Team finished 12th. The team, all with Shelties, included Marcy Mantel with Wave of Foster City, CA; Heidi Vania from Anchorage, AK, with Ice (naturally); and Dee Anna Gamel of Alpharetta, GA with Kelsi.

The USA Large Team, all with Border Collies, finished 21st in combined. Team members were Terry Smorch of Lake Elmo, MN with Presto; Anne Braue from Eau Claire, WI with Scream; and Channon Fosty from Newark, CA with Icon.

European teams being closer together are more familiar with the types of courses designed by mostly European judges but more and more distant countries such as the USA, Japan, South Africa, Brazil and Russia are closing the gap.

The USA has outstanding coaching by Nancy Gyes, who was on the original team and has been to all but one of the World Championships, and her assistant, former team member, Kathy Legett, both from California. Nancy was pleased with the team’s performance.

“We worked hard to get ready and I’m happy we finished right up there with the best,” she said.

Several dozen American supporters were on hand to cheer for the team and wave the red, white and blue. The major sponsor was ‘I Love Dogs’ which helped the USA to make a proud showing of the colors.

As we bid Auf Wiedersehen to Reiden (we now know where it’s located), we must learn to say Good Morning in French because the next World Agility Championship will be in France.

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Posted by admin on Jul 17 2011. Filed under The Buzz, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.