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A group of people are waiting to watch you run a maze-like obstacle course the likes of which you’ve never run before. You have to pull it off with enough focus to avoid wrong turns, enough precision to make sure your feet touch certain points, and enough speed to defeat dozens of opponents.
Also: you are a dog.
Specifically, you’re one of Saturday’s Canine Aces westminster The Kennel Club Agility Competition is a recent addition, kicking off the legendary club’s landmark 150th Dog Show.
So what do you do?
“It’s a team effort of dog and handler,” said professional agility trainer Emily Klarman, who coached her border collie, Vanish, to victory last year. “Agility is an important conversation we have with our dogs.”
The conversational portion is oral. The handler shouts commands such as “Tunnel!” “Jump!” “Left!” “Right!” dog Sometimes the answer is loud and enthusiastic.
But it’s also about body language: The trainer runs with the released dog, positioning himself purposefully and watching the animal’s eyes to make sure they’re on target.
“If they’re looking at something, that’s probably what they’re thinking about,” Klarman said before a recent practice session with Swish, another border collie, at UDog Training Center in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania.
Like a furry rocket, this lean, mottled 5-year-old can navigate jumps, close poles, sharp turns, narrow ramps, seesaws and other equipment as if it were inside her DNA. To an extent, that’s true – Border Collies are renowned for their intelligence, enthusiasm and agility, and they have won the agility championship at Westminster in nine of the 12 years to date. (three One of the winning runs was piloted by Udog founders Jessica Ajoux and Perry DeWitt. )
But regardless of breed, becoming an agility champion requires a lot of training, technique, and strategy.
For example, canines will lose points if they leave seesaws and ramps too early. They must make the final journey. To instill this habit, the trainer may habituate the dog to walking on a mat on the ground, then place that mat at the end of the obstacle, and finally remove the mat.
Dogs also have to master different jumping methods, depending on whether they need to turn around tightly after landing.
“Easy,” Klarman prompts Swish as he practices such a jump, and Swish — who typically prefers a full tilt — slows his approach to the ball. It’s a delicate balance: scores are based on accuracy and time.
Agility trials do not allow treats or toys to be given on the course, so dogs need to be motivated through the fun of play and their relationship with their trainer.
While the dog learns the signals, the trainer needs to memorize a complex path through 20 obstacles. At Westminster they didn’t get the map until the morning of the race and then had a few minutes to walk the track and think about, for example, whether to cross in front of or behind the dog at different turns.
In addition to the mental and physical work, “a lot of it is emotional,” Klarman, 33, said. She explains that animals “can definitely tell if we’re really excited, excited, or disappointed.”
For example, when Varnish struggled in the seesaw hurdles at last year’s Westminster final, Klarman told herself to make sure the dog didn’t get frustrated: “If my heart isn’t in it, obviously, her heart isn’t in it.”
Westminster, considered the most famous dog show in the United States, added an agility competition in 2014. This popular dog sport brings a faster-paced, more athletic and inclusive style to the traditional, reserved parade of purebred dogs in circles. The Agility competition is open to mixed breed dogs, with the 2024 mutt winning.
Klarman has loved dogs since he was a child and got into canine sports as a teenager, then earned a degree in nursing before realizing he wanted to make a career working with dogs. Last year’s victory at Westminster was a milestone.
“It really meant a lot to share that moment with a dog that meant so much to me — to showcase her and let the world know how special she was,” Klarman recalled.
This year, she will be cheering for her boyfriend, Peter Wirth, and his Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Welly.
Like many agility trainers, Voss, 34, got into the sport simply because he had an energetic dog that needed more stimulation than just walks and fetching. Five years later, he and Willy returned New YorkCatch the Westminster game Saturday at the Javits Center.
Klarman and Varnish stay home, and for good reason. The dog’s first litter of puppies could be born any day now.