Alexandria Agility Dog Competes in North American Dog Agility Championships By Paul L
Pam Schiffleger and her 5 year-old rescue Border Collie Tripp recently competed in the NADAC (North American Dog Agility Council) Championships in Sunbury, OH. Tripp is her third agility dog. She adopted him when he was 6 months old from the Fort Erie, Canada SPC and began his agility career the following month. It was a bit of a crap shoot that Tripp would make a good agility dog but if you ever see him on an agility course you will quickly see how much he loves this game.
Pam loves the sport because of the teamwork that the sport demands. Handlers must direct the dog through an obstacle course in a race for both time and accuracy. The handler’s controls are limited to voice and body cues to signal the path the dog must take.
This was the first Championship event for Pam and she knew that Tripp’s division would be highly competitive so her goal was to ‘keep it together’ for the seven preliminary rounds run over 3.5 days and earn a placement in one round. They placed 5th, 7th and 8th in the preliminary rounds. In the end, she exceeded all expectations and landed in 11th place out of 27 teams and missed the finals by 5.12 points.
NADAC is one of many agility venues (e.g., AKC, USDAA, UKI, CPE) that can be found in the mid-Atlantic. Pam and Tripp have competed in AKC, CPE and UKI but NADAC is their primary venue. Pam and Tripp take classes twice a week, compete 2-3 weekends a month and often take equipment to local parks to practice.
Tripp is currently taking a canine conditioning seminar with Sandy Modell of Wholistic Hound in January.
