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We made finals this year!!!

Ann Perkins and I were lucky enough to compete at the 2024 Westminster Master Agility Championships on May 11, 2024. It was held at the US Tennis Center located in Flushing, NY. There were a multitude of dogs competing. This was our second time at Westminster. Last year we NQd both Standard and Jumpers, so our goal this year was to run clean. We ran Standard first and had a clean run. Then we ran Jumpers and had a clean run there too! Right when we finished running our Jumpers run, I kind of had that feeling that we made finals. An hour later, it was confirmed that not only did we make finals, but we were the 4th fastest dog to run in the finals group! I cried. We waited pretty much all day and got to compete at 7pm that night. It was exhilarating and amazing. Cameras everywhere, spectators cheering, my friends and family watching. There is a sign as you walk onto the main stadium floor with a quote by Billie Jean King and it says: PRESSURE IS A PRIVILEGE. It definitely makes you focus on the task at hand and reminds us that just being there is an immense privilege. I let that pressure get to me this year and forgot where I was going on the course twice (which is unlike me, as I never forget where I’m going). However, Ann stayed right with me and did EXACTLY as I asked. I cannot ask for a better teammate than my little Ann. She it truly a “Cinderella” story. Little ragged dog from the streets getting to compete at the finals at Westminster, the OLDEST DOG SHOW IN THE UNITED STATES. I can’t tell you how proud I am of this little mighty 10-lb scrappy little princess. She is truly amazing. The first video is a video of the first time we were on National TV! It gets replayed over and over again on FS1 and FS2. The last 2 videos are the runs that qualified us to get into finals. We will likely be seen at Thanksgiving this year, which will be a real treat for us!

This is part 2 of the Ultimate Dog Agility Competition: UKI US OPEN blog. Sometimes there are professional photographers taking photos during the event. I ALWAYS purchase ALL of the photos because they’re really cool and I’m not sure how many more events Ann will be able to run. She’s probably around 8 years old right now. So I am collecting as many memories as I possibly can. My favorite photos from this batch of photos are the photos where you can see Ann committed to an obstacle in mid-air and I’m going the opposite direction. I also love that Ann looks like she is FLYING, almost like she’s FLOATING in mid-air. I think my absolute favorite photo is the one where she is coming out of the tunnel in mid-air looking like an angel. There were so many amazing dogs competing at this ultimate dog agility competition that it was super intimidating, but my little street dog took them on with huge amounts of fierceness. Agility life is a huge commitment. Once you have committed to trial-life, it’s pretty constant. For example, I’m looking at my January-February 2024 schedule, and it looks like there is a trial EVERY weekend, either AKC or UKI. I’m hesitating in signing up for all of them, but then I think that we won’t be doing this forever, so just do it, right? It’s like travel soccer for kids or any travel sport. You have a small window of time where the dog is running at his or her prime. This is that time for Ann, so I’m going to go as long as Ann enjoys it.

Ann and I went to Jacksonville, Florida for 5 days in November, 2023 to compete in the UKI US Open, which is dog agility competition on steroids. By that, I mean that the courses are HUGE and super complicated. We had so much fun running these crazy courses that even the professionals had a hard time getting through! We finished 13 & 14 in a couple of runs and we were excited to get on the board in Snooker. I got to meet Susan Garrett, one of the gurus of the dog agility world. I fan-girled her and got a photo with her. Then later in the week she told me that she watched our Snooker run and that we did a great job! I also had the great fortune to meet and compete with Olympic Gold Medalist Diver, Greg Louganis. Since there were more than 1000 dogs competing at the UKI US Open, they divided us into small groups and we competed together in our small group all week. Greg just happened to be in our small group. He was such a nice person and we had so much fun rooting for and supporting each other. I’m attaching all of our runs and photos from this crazy dog agility competition. So proud of this little street dog from Wilmington! The top video is our one and only clean run. I was so excited that I cried.

Living in a small community has its advantages. For example, your local community rallies around you and recognizes you for the crazy things you do. I am a lawyer during the day, but those of you who have known me for a while know that I also love musical theatre and dogs. I own my own theatre company, along with my business partner, Justin Smith. I’ve music-directed over 100 shows and produced over 40 shows in Wilmington, NC. I like to rescue dogs and of course, this blog is about my journey with Ann Perkins and the dog agility world. When Ann finished 18th in the nation at the 2022 AKC National Agility Championships, Frances Weller from WECT did a story on us. Then just this past Monday, May 29, 2023, Donna Gregory from WWAY did a story on me, recognizing me as an “Extraordinary Person in the Cape Fear”. Anyway, if you missed the stories on TV, don’t fret, they’re right here!!!

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This year, the Westminster Kennel Club’s 10th Annual Master Agility Championships was held at the USTA Center in Flushing, NY. Ann Perkins and I (and my mom) traveled to New York to participate. We stayed at my sister’s house in Manhattan. My family came to support us. One of my best friends drove up from Virginia to support us! Friends that live in New York came to support us. It was pretty overwhelming and amazing. We competed in the famous Arthur Ashe Stadium.

There is a sign that all of the great tennis players see right before walking onto one of the greatest tennis courts in the world. It is a quote by Billie Jean King. It says, “Pressure is a Privilege”. Pressure makes us better and keeps us honest. We feel pressure because we have been given an opportunity. In my case, I had the opportunity to compete on the national stage once again with my tiny, beautiful, amazing, smart Ann Perkins. We did NOT come home with any ribbons, but we can say that at least we tried really hard and we were shooting for the stars. I can accept defeat as long as I get a fair shot at it. Dream big, shoot for the stars. You might not get it this time, but you can always look forward to the next time! “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . . who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”– Teddy Roosevelt #westminsteragility #machannperkins #dogagilityquest #westminsterdogshow #newyork #billiejeanking #usta

These are our runs from the Westminster show and although we did not qualify, we did our best and had a great time. Next time, Westminster! Next time!!!

These are the official videos from the live stream of the event! We had a couple misses so we didn’t finish as high up as we wanted this year, but there’s always next year! I just can’t believe I get to compete with my dog and travel the country doing it. I mean, really. Travel for two and a half days to run around in a dirt horse ring with your dog? SURE! COUNT ME IN!

Ann Perkins and I competed in our second AKC National Agility Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma this month! We finished 74th, which, compared to last year, was worse (we finished 18th last year) but we finished and we had a great time and 74th in the NATION is still not so bad, right?

It took us 2 and a half days to drive out there and we stayed in a cute little Air BNB just near the venue. It was great because we could come back between runs and chill for a sec.

We had 2 clean runs out of the 3 that counted. Ann ran super fast and confident and that’s all I can ask of her.

Have you ever participated in a national competition of any sort? It’s pretty intense. Everyone is hyped and in our case, all the dogs are hyped and there are over 1200 dogs present. In one place. Then you wait and wait until it’s your turn. Once they scan your tag into the system, you are the next one on the line. It feels like the ride attendant just locked your harness in on some crazy roller coaster and you wanna yell at them and say you want to get off but you don’t have time and then you step into the ring because IT’S YOUR TURN. Your heart is racing and you know your teammate can feel it and I can feel her heart racing too. Then you let the beast run her heart out and hope you don’t forget where the roller coaster is supposed to go. Then, just like a roller coaster, it’s over in a matter of less than a minute and you want to cry because clean run or not, you have a dog that is happy to run with you and do whatever you ask and trusts you with her life. And then you turn around and do it again because we are all adrenaline junkies. – even the dog.  I am so lucky to have Ann Perkins as my teammate. She is my everything. #machannperkins#akcnac2023#dogagilityquest#streetdogrescue#akcnationalagilitychampionships

Attached are the photos from the event. Photos by Great Dane Photos.

I have been very slack in updating my blog. I know, it’s a blog and I should write on it often. Well, I didn’t. But I am now. About a year and a half ago, I became the proud owner of a re-homed, 8-lb., adorable little Chihuahua named Happy. At first, I was not planning to do agility with Happy, since Chihuahuas are not known for their agile abilities. However, after taking him with me to train Ann, he showed interest in wanting to play agility too, so we tried it. And he was a very fast learner. Helps that he loves food. In any case, we started competing with Happy at the end of April, 2022 and by the end of November, 2022, he was competing at the Master Standard and Master Jumpers level. He’s not as confident as Ann and sometimes that gets him. This video is from a trial we just did in January 2023 in Raleigh, NC. He had the pre-run jitters before the first jump, but once he started, he kept going. He would have had a qualifying run had he not tripped the timer with his tiny nose at the beginning jump. What a funny dude. I love him so much.

Getting a MACH is a pretty intimidating and daunting task. Your team has to get a double-Q twenty times and get 750 speed points in order to get that title. You get speed points by being under the standard course time. So if the standard course time is 60 seconds and you finish in 50 seconds, you get 10 speed points. Speed points are not usually are problem. It’s usually getting the QQ. So if in the morning you get a Q on one of the runs, you have the pressure on you to get that second Q. You have to remain calm and focused and not let your dog feel your nerves or excitement. It is definitely an exercise in mental focus. We were at QQ 19 and messed up a couple days before we hit QQ20, but here it is! We got our MACH2 on December 18th! Took us 8 months. (We got our first MACH in March of 2022.) You can see that it is a pretty sloppy run. I think it was because Ann could feel my nerves. We almost lost it a couple times but I was able to pull her to me. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to compete in this sport and that my teammate is my BEST FRIEND!!

The AKC National Agility Championships were held at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, Florida on April 1-3, 2022. Scores are accumulated over 3 runs: Jumpers, Standard, and Hybrid (which is a combination of Jumpers and Standard). Even if you don’t run absolutely clean, you may have a chance at the Challengers round but that’s if you ran super fast and pretty clean in the other 2 rounds. Basically, the goal is to run as fast as you can but as clean as you can with no mistakes: no dropped bars, off course, or refusals. 

Ann Perkins and I drove to Ocala, Florida on March 30th. On March 31sr, we went to Silver Springs in the morning and took a glass bottom boat ride to see the natural springs. There were monkeys that inhabited the park and we got to see them too. Then, later in the afternoon, we checked into the World Equestrian Center to pick up our packets with our arm-band numbers and information.

The first day of running was on Friday, April 1, 2022. We had a warm-up run and then we ran a Premier Standard run. These runs did not count toward the cumulative score for the championship, but were made available to us to get used to running on the surface. Ann Perkins finished 38th in the Premier Standard run. We were so excited about that since this was our first national event and very overwhelming.

We then ran Jumpers and Standard on Saturday, April 2, 2022. Ann ran clean and relatively fast. Then we ran a Hybrid course on Sunday, April 3 2022. She was clean again. We ultimately ended up finishing 18th in the 8′ regular class. We were so surprised and excited to have finished so high up. We were 9 dogs and 10 seconds away from being in the finals. We know what we are striving for now! NAC 2023 HERE WE COME!