The canines looked like they had it made and should be enjoying a respite from a blistering sun, thanks to their handlers treating them to shade and full water bowls.
But the dogs barked their impatience to escape their comfort for the heat of the Biscuit Eaters Agility arena, attracted by challenging obstacles like the A-frame, seesaw, tire jump and lines of poles to weave around.
While most dogs on this day were working breeds, agility is more play than work for both members of a team.
“It really is a game you play with your dog,” Nederland trainer Joy Bishop said. “The two of you are a team out there doing agility.”
The animals and their handlers came to this Boulder training center on a recent Saturday to fine-tune their game for this weekend’s Colorado Kennel Club Agility Trials in the Events Center at the National Western Complex.
Canine agility competitions began in 1978 in England as halftime entertainment at the Crufts Dog Show.
“Then it became a sport in its own right in the mid-1980s,” said handler Tracy Smith of Boulder. “It came over to this country in the mid-1990s and is the fastest-growing dog sport in America.”
The American Kennel Club, which sanctioned this weekend’s trials, confirmed that the contests’ popularity is growing in leaps and bounds.
“The AKC held its first agility trials in 1994, staging 23 trials with 2,000 entries,” spokeswoman Niki Marshall wrote in an e-mail. “In 2004, AKC sanctioned 1,668 agility trials, a 21 percent increase from 2003, with approximately 633,871 entries.”
Bishop, Smith and other handlers said the mushrooming popularity of the contests is easily explained: Agility is fun for both dogs and humans.
The real challenge in training dogs to compete in agility trials is getting their handlers up to snuff on their responsibilities.
“It takes less time to train the dog than it does to train the person,” Smith said. “The dogs learn it so much faster than we do that it’s funny.”
She said most newcomers think the hardest part will be to get their dogs to run through the tunnels, climb up and down the A-frame and seesaw, run through the poles and jump over the bar obstacles.
“And that is probably actually the easiest part,” Smith said. “Telling them when and how (to run) the space between the obstacles is actually the hard part.” In competition, handlers run the course with their dogs to direct them along the correct path.
AKC agility trials have two courses: “jumpers,” featuring a serpentine path, and a standard course.
The first course has the dogs weaving among poles, jumping over bars and running through tunnels. The other course includes all that plus the larger obstacles.
“The course layout is always different,” Smith said. “That’s the human part of the equation. You have to learn the course. Actually, in practice I hardly ever run a dog more than twice on the same course because by then the dog knows it, and you’re no longer training him. Dogs learn things so quickly that after two times they could probably do it without you.”
Handlers receive a map and have 8 to 10 minutes to walk through the course and plan their strategy before their dogs race against the clock. Dogs, however, do not get a sneak preview at AKC trials.
“Generally, the dogs are cueing, most people believe, 80 to 90 percent off your body,” Longmont trainer Liz Durfee said. “The primary thing you’re steering with is your shoulders. But your hands are going to be part of that. You want everything you are telling the dog to be cohesive, so you want your feet to follow. You want your hands to follow and definitely your shoulders.”
She said the dogs, which boast outstanding peripheral vision, pick up the cues while running at top speed and focusing on the next obstacle. “Dogs have 270-degree vision, so they are constantly checking in on you and your body language,” Boulder handler Judy Stone said.
Agility, which breaks competition into categories determined by height, also is a popular spectator sport. It provides more action than traditional dog shows, where breed conformation is judged.
“That’s a beauty contest,” Stone said. “This is an athletic event.”
Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
Colorado Kennel Club Agility Trials
DOG AGILITY|National Western Events Center, 1515 E. 47th Ave., 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday |FREE|303-288-8926
